Battle for Reverence

I love my children and appreciate my husband, but there are some days that I come out of Sacrament Meeting wondering why I bothered to go. It is hard to feel the spirit when you don't hear a word of the meeting. Today was one of those days. My children are always a little bit more wild when I attend church with them after having visited other wards the previous weeks. It clues me in that the rules probably aren't quite as strict the same when I am gone. I knew it was going to be bad when I had to have my hand over Benjamin's mouth on the way into church because he was throwing a fit about something. I whispered furiously in his ear all the way to our bench, and he managed to quiet down, but the battle continued all during Sacrament meeting.

During the songs, he wanted the hymn book - but he didn't want it on the correct page and he didn't want me to have a hymn book at all. During the sacrament I told him to think about Jesus, and he starts looking around and saying (loudly), "Where's Jesus?" "I can't see him, where is he?" After distracting him (several times) and convincing him to use a quiet voice, we made it through the sacrament. During the testimonies, I made the mistake of telling him to quit chewing on his shirt, because he was getting it all wet. He then announced that he was a dog, and started acting like one. Somehow I managed to convince him that he couldn't crawl around and act like a dog, so he said (loudly), "Ok, I'll look at the humans. (starts pointing) There's a human, (still loud) there's a human, those people are human." Seeing my face (oh yes, I have THE LOOK down pat after 4 kids!), he said (more quietly)"you're a mom." I smiled at him and said, "yep I'm a human too." My mistake. Benjamin scowled and yelled, "no, you're not a human, you're a mom!" Silly me for thinking mom's were human. :-) I guess after four kids I should have known better!

Anyway, you get the picture. I got more of a workout during Sacrament Meeting than I have in weeks. He kept throwing himself backwards, expecting me to catch him. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready for him a couple of times and he ended up bumping his head on the wood. Oops. And when I did manage to distract him with a book or get him settled down, his big sister next to him would start playing with his hair or bugging him in some other manner, and rile him up all over again. It was definitely a test of my patience. It made me thankful for my stake calling, because I actually get to sit through Sacrament Meeting sometimes in other wards without my children. It also made me thankful they don't act like this every week! Benjamin was sure full of imagination today, though. As I walked him down to nursery, he suddenly dropped on the floor in the hall and announced, "I'm a frog," which we all know means he couldn't walk anymore. Frogs don't walk. They hop. And it takes the hands and feet to do it. When we finally got to nursery, I took a deep breath and went in search of adult companionship. And had two glorious hours to refill my "bucket."