Easter Sunday

Sundays are always a killer. That 9am church really drains you.

Easter sunday was no exception.

I was up and getting ready at 7, which meant I didn't even eat breakfast or see my kids' easter surprises with them. That was all secondhand from Steve.

We miraculously made it out the door at 8am, and to church by 8:30am. Yes, our church is about 20min away. Steve and I are both in the choir, and we had a quick practice before church.

My next assignment was what to do with our kids. Hadn't really had time to even think about THAT part yet. So I started farming them out. Grace went over to sit with a family that had an 8 year old girl, Isabel, that wanted to play with her. Check.

Gavin, Aliza, and I went and sat by a mom I know in primary that only has a teenage boy. She said she'd watch both kids when it was time for me to go up to sing. Check.

Steve was passing the sacrament. This will soon become an important detail.

So all is fine. Soon, though, I'm realizing that I never told Grace that we'd be up singing the entire sacrament meeting, and this could all end badly. She's the type of girl that needs to know her boundaries, and have threats and rewards, which I did neither. Whoops. By then, there was nothing I could do about it but let it unfold.

So the sacrament gets passed and Gavin starts to unravel. Steve is in plain sight and he wants his daddy. Da-dee! Da-dee! He keeps yelling this out, and finally is crying mad that I won't let him out of the pew to go het his da-dee. So off into the foyer I go for the last part of the sacrament.

When it's over, I walk in and hand him to Steve, mouthing that he wants HIM. Steve decides to take Gavin up to sing with us. This wouldn't have been much of anything, normally. Gavin is always by our feet during practices and mostly just walks around or drives his cars on the chairs.

This situation got drastically worse, however, when I see Grace out of my peripheral vision and she's running up to sit with me. Recipe for disaster.

Grace wants to stand by me; remember, we're standing and singing at this very moment. But as soon as Gavin gets fussy, Steve puts him down on the floor to play. Now, I have Gavin AND Grace playing at my feet while I'm singing.

I'm silently praying for kindness and love to flow through the pair of them, but I know better. These are the two that steal each others' toys, push and hit, and generally have a hard time getting along. Which is what happens next.

Grace steals toy from Gavin. Gavin trys to get toy back. Gavin loses and falls backwards. Off the step that we're standing on, onto the huge microphone stand.

For a moment, I think that all hell is about to break loose with a stand crashing and Gavin screaming, but it just teeters and corrects itself. But Gavin is on the verge of hysterics, and at the final note of our song, Steve swoops in and carries him outside as fast as he can.

Grace is given the eye of death from me, and I whisper to her that she better sit by her friend, Bryanna, and not come up there again. She immediately senses the danger, and leaves quietly.

After a solo and talk, Steve rejoins us, with Gavin in tow. We finish out the meeting, thankfully, and get out of there. I'm embarrased and just want to forget our "show" in front of the whole congregation.

Gavin sustained a huge purple bruise on his ear, strangely enough, but was otherwise OK. And Grace was an angel all through primary-a miracle.

Steve and I have both come to the conclusion that the choir may just need ONE of us. If they let us back.

P.S. As if that wasn't crazy enough, the missionaries were without anywhere to go for dinner that night and asked if they could join us. Of course I said yes, and spent the rest of the day cooking and getting my house in order. It turned out wonderful, but I was DONE by the end of the day!