Crazy Sunday

This morning, Michael had to be at work by 9:30. We slept in for the first time in quite some time until 8:30. It felt so nice. Lately, our kids have been waking up just after 6am. So not fun. They can get pretty grouchy and tired, but only Mason and Megan nap, and not every day, either. Thomas needs to nap, but he doesn't because he is in school (besides the fact that he refuses to nap). Anyway, at 8:45am, Thomas' Primary teacher called to see if either Michael or I could substitute for his class today. Michael was getting ready to leave right then so he could get the sacrament before he went to work. I thought (insanely) "hmmm... I'm not teaching today. I don't have much going on. A normal person could throw together a lesson in two hours," so I said, "Sure, I'll do it." Ummmm... I'm not normal. Especially this morning. Here were my challenges:

1. I have a severe problem with punctuality. I really struggle with estimating time and staying on task.
2. I had not had breakfast yet, nor had most of my chidren.
3. None of us had showered.
4. McKenzie still had to prepare her talk for senior primary (that I just found out about yesterday late afternoon), and I needed to help her with it.
5. I was a single mom this morning.
6. We had less than two hours until we needed to leave for church by the time I hung up the phone with him.
7. I still had to look up the lesson, print it out, and prepare it.

By the time we left for church, we were 15 minutes late, I was upset with my children because they were acting in their usual, predictable way instead of the perfect way I needed them to act in order offset my poor choices. Really, I was upset with myself for saying "Yes" instead of "This really isn't a good morning for me. I would love to substitute another Sunday when I can prepare ahead of time." It's all about boundaries, and I blew it. So, we missed the the sacrament and snuck into the overflow after the it was done being passed.

I handed puzzles to the kids to keep them quiet while I quickly wrote McKenzie's talk for her. I tried to look over my lesson, but Mason was in a bad mood because he couldn't finish watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before we left for church (he had just started it maybe 20 minutes earlier), so he was throwing attitude all over the place. Megan got mad because her puzzle piece fell on the floor and since she was three chairs down from me, I couldn't pick it up immediately to keep her quiet. I took Mason out to time out because he started throwing a fit about his puzzle. When we returned, Megan had been drawing on the wall with her pencil, so I erased it the best I could. Thomas was instantly bored and hungry and not too quiet about it. McKenzie was engrossed in drawing some silly picture instead of listening to the speaker, which I think she should do now that she is baptised. I got really annoyed when, after asking her again to listen to the talk, she sweetly asked, "what would you like to draw in my frame?"

Finally, I needed a time out, so I took all the kids out to the car with 15 minutes of sacrament meeting to go. Thomas misunderstood and said, "Yay! We're going home!" I was tempted to bag it and go home, but I knew that would just make things worse. Then my kids would learn that when the going gets tough, we just go home, when church is where we really need to be (even if we did arrive too late for the most important part). So, after coaching McKenzie on her talk, we went back in and tried again. I took the kids to their classes and lucked out with my friend, Dayna, as a teaching partner. (Her son refused to stay in primary unless she stayed too, and she volunteered to help me teach their class.) Since she was helping me, I was able to duck in and out to watch McKenzie give her talk. McKenzie did a great job.

I'm glad we stayed at church. So many times, I have been stressed out or frustrated just getting to church, but I'm always feel so much better by the time we're done. And when I've skipped in the past for some lame reason, I always find out that I missed something really good. (Like when Elder David B. Haight stopped by our ward in Salt Lake one Sunday.) So, I've learned to go, because it is worth it.