Oh the JOY!

To quote Lewis and Clark: O the Joy!

Today was our ward's primary program. Jimmy and Amelia each had speaking parts. And they said them into the microphone. End of story.
(Stop here if you aren't in the mood for my venting.)

To fully appreciate what happened today, we must revisit last week when (horror or horrors) Amelia was forced to wear tights to church. She hated tights, but at least they kept her underpants covered better than her (flipped up) dress. She put up such a stink over the tights, I took her to the store to buy bloomers this week, hoping to solve the modesty issue this way. Unfortunately, she didn't like bloomers any more than she liked tights. This put her in an unfortunate mood for the primary program today.

Gary always handles behavior issues at church. He says it's a man's responsibility and what ever he says to them in the lobby always seems to work, so I keep out of it. We haven't had an incident at church for months. Unfortunately, he was out of town today, (leaving for California after lovingly strapping the rest of us into the van to go to church.)
I lead the music in sacrament meeting, so I rushed the family in so I could put up the hymn numbers before the meeting. As I posted the numbers, two of my four children began crying loudly. The third was punching the others and the fourth was under the bench. I quickly asked someone else to lead the music and ushered the kids to the overflow section where we would be less of a distraction. The howling stopped, but Amelia would only stand on her chair and Jonathan kept tipping over chairs so we vacated to the lobby where I carefully explainned that the Halloween candy would be going in the trash unless they shaped up. We made another attempt at the overflow section but ended up in the lobby again. They were lined up on the couch with Simon crying, Jimmy punching Amelia (for saying "tina you fat lard, come get your dinner-" we read it on a t shirt the day before and she still thought it was funny. Why it inspired violence, I'll never know.) and Jonathan out the doors. When Jonny escaped, Jimmy thought that was hilarious and Amelia thought it was a good idea. She followed suit. Some guy offered to hold Simon while hauled the 2 squirming escape artists back into the church. Then the bishop announced it was time for the children to come forward for the primary program.
Jimmy and Amelia went to the front. Jonny, Simon, and I calmly took our places in the back. Amelia wouldn't sit down. Everyone stood up to sing. She sat down. Everyone sat down, she got up and started jumping around. Her teacher tried talking to her. She ran around in circles on the stand. Finally, sandwiched between two members of the primary presidency she sat until it was her turn to go to the microphone and say "I am thankful for Italian food." Then she bolted out the door. I caught her and she "sat" with me. Jonny got tired of Amelia having all the fun, so he decided to try some antics of his own. Fortunately, he wasn't able to figure out the door to leave. The relief society president, realizing I was outnumbered, offered to take one of the kids. I handed her Jonathan, and he sat quietly on her lap for the remainder of the meeting. Simon got fussy, so I discreetly fed him in the back of the meeting room. I didn't want to miss Jimmy give his part. Amelia amused herself by taking off her shoes and socks. At this point, Amelia decided to "haunt" the aisles by walking up and down them with a blanket over her head. Fortunately, she didn't make the "WOO" sound that real ghosts make. So I dashed up the aisle to catch her; when I caught up, I realized that I couldn't carry her and Simon so I deposited him on a nearby bench while I hauled my ghostie to the back. Then I went to retrieve my poor baby boy. Then it was time for Jimmy to say his part. We stayed long enough to hear him say "I can serve my brother Simon by giving him a hug." A nice lady I was sitting by took Simon and I firmly marched Amelia out to the lobby, where we sat VERY REVERENTLY until the end of the meeting.
I cheerfully sent the kids off to primary and nursery and settled down to enjoy Sunday School with Simon. Really, I was cheerful. Simon started to whine and I remembered "oh yeah- you have a dirty diaper." After changing his diaper I settled down in the stinky solitude that is the mother's lounge. Amelia's teacher stuck her head in the door... Drat, she found me!

I suppose I should have been mad, but I wasn't. Just a little frustrated that I didn't have enough arms!