Just one of those days

You know those days when you show up to church, excited about the preparations you've made for your calling?  You go into the classroom, excited and ready to teach an important principle to those angelic children?  But instead of loving what you've prepared, you get blank stares, closed  mouths, and the like.  After 10 minutes of this you lose your patience, lecture them a bit and come close to crying but hang on and finish the day.

Yeah, today was one of those days for me.  So glad it's over.

This Year's Primary Program -- A Top 10 List

Without further ado, the top 10 reasons why this year's Primary Program totally rocked.

10. Each child started their part by saying "I am a child of God."
9. They knew most of the words to the songs and when they didn't, they sure looked cute standing there.
8. Our Primary President's brilliant idea to have giant chocolate chip cookies afterward as a thank you and as an object lesson on service. A huge hit.
7. Nearly everyone who came up to tell us how much they enjoyed the program said it was the best one they'd ever seen. Want to know why? Read #6.
6. The kids wrote their own parts (well, nearly all of them did.) So nice to have them personally invested in what they were saying!
5. Nobody threw up. It was touch and go there for a little while. Seriously. I had to run one kid out when the adult he told about his need to hurl looked at me and gave me the deer in the headlights look. I didn't wait for her to do anything and just grabbed him and ran.
4. Basic gospel principles taught by 3-11 year olds including important topics like God is our father, families, temples, missionary work, prophets, baptism.
3. A 5 year old boy saying his part at the microphone when we weren't even sure he was going to do it. Such a triumphant feeling for all of us when he got brave and did it!
2. Great teacher support & wonderful attendance at our Saturday practice.

And the number one reason why our Primary Program rocked this year?

1. Beautiful children singing each and every word of "I am a child of God." Then later in Primary when they got to choose a song to sing, both Jr and Sr Primary chose to sing it again. You haven't lived until you've heard a child sing that song. Truly.

And now, I need a nap.

Exhausted

I've been home from church for 15 minutes. I'm in my pajamas already and eating some leftover Key Lime cheese ball from the Tastefully Simple party the other night, while my dinner begins to cook.

Why am I comfy and stress eating so soon after church, you ask?

Well, today was our first Primary Program rehearsal. I'm sort of "in charge" of this year's program. It went well but, holy cow, I'm wiped. I have to find seats for 3 or 4 more kids and to write parts for those same children. It can be done but it's still more work. Not yet ready to even attempt it though today -- tomorrow will be here soon enough. It's going to be an early to bed night. I can hardly wait.

By the way, have you even tried the Tastefully Simple Key Lime cheese ball? Seriously fantastic.

A good day in Primary (or the I had a "I would be an okay mom" realization)

Okay so I have to toot my own horn about Primary yesterday. This is basically a journal entry but a good story...read on, please...

An 8 year old girl named "Mary" was in the hallway crying to her mother and Primary teacher yesterday when she was supposed to be in Sharing Time. I stopped to check on her and her mom said she didn't want to be at church today. She has a father who doesn't attend church regularly and they are kind of hit and miss attendance-wise. The teacher said she was going to take her to the bathroom for tissue and I stayed and talked to the mom.

The mom (who has 5 kids total) then said her two younger kids can manipulate her into leaving church early and she didn't understand why her older kids weren't able to do that (no meant no with the older ones.) I told her "go to class - she can't manipulate you if you're not here." The mom said "are you sure?" I said "yes, we'll take care of it."

She left, the teacher came back with Mary. The teacher (a mother of six children who, frankly, should have known better) then said "I really think Mary isn't feeling well because she's not usually weepy like this." I told them Mary's mom had gone to class so Mary needed to go too. She started to cry again and I offered to take her on a walk around the church so she could get some fresh air and feel better and teacher could go back to sharing time.

Mary put her hand in mine and we walked around the church building. We talked about being in the third grade and how her teacher likes frogs and how I broke my wrist rollerskating when I was in the third grade. We passed Kim's husband who asked Mary if Sister Shaw was being bad in Primary and that's why she had to walk me around the building. (very funny!)

We got back to the Primary Room and it was time for class. She didn't last long and soon was sitting on her mom's lap, crying in the mother's lounge. I asked her if she would come and help me with the secretary stuff because I was doing double-duty yesterday. I told Mary her mom needed to go to Relief Society and the only way she could do that is if Mary came and helped me. So she did.

We figured out who was at Primary and who wasn't. We assigned the talks and scripture and prayers for next week (she got a prayer assignment.) I got in the message that it's hard to find kids to give the talks because lots of them don't come every week. We sat in the back and sang the songs and she stopped looking sad and started smiling.

I won't let her skip class again next week but I feel like I handled this situation the way it should be handled. She ended up leaving Primary smiling and happy and hopefully, those good feelings will carry over to next Sunday.

My favorite thing? The fact that she wanted to hold my hand the whole entire time we walked around the church. It was nice to be needed.