Testing my resolve

This year, I decided to go simple with my New Year's Resolutions.  No insane, unattainable goals (run a marathon in June!  lose 50 pounds!), but simple things, like start counting calories again, exercise more, drink more water, cut down to only one pot of coffee a day.  I also resolved to be more patient with my husband and son, and to try to not stress about little things so much.

I almost broke all of my resolutions January 1st.

The first issue was that the first day of the new year fell on Sunday.  Which meant that, instead of sleeping in and having a lazy day off from work, I had to get my butt in gear to get to church.  And I had to do all this without my typical morning pot of extra-strong black coffee.

When I got to church, it became obvious that my resolutions about patience and not stressing so much were going to be tested.  We were low on volunteers for children's church (because, duh, New Year's), so we were going to have to combine all three classes:  nursery, preschool, and elementary.

The end result was myself and three other volunteers being responsible for 21 kids.

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Grace-filled Life

The last couple of weeks in church, we've been discussing grace, which is just awesome with me.  I love the topic of grace, and though we often pay lip-service to it, I feel like it's something Christians don't necessarily discuss in-depth a lot.  Which is a shame, because some of the New Testament writings on grace make for some of the most fascinating apologetics in the New Testament.  This really appeals to me because, while emotion is all fine and good, I really love me some logic in my religion.

Grace is one of my favorite topics to really study and get deep into because of my tortured history with its opposite, legalism.  The churches I grew up in were incredibly hypocritical and legalistic, teaching that the smallest infractions (i.e. "listening to secular music") could cause you to "backslide" and lose your salvation.  "Grace" was mentioned once or twice, but the emphasis was really on keeping your salvation through works and following an endless series of rules.  (Ironically, whenever the leaders were caught in really big sins, the blame was almost always placed on the Devil.)

When I left and rejected the teachings of the Pentecostal Holiness church, I found myself untethered, and drifting.  Because I had been under the weight of "the law" for so long, and all of the guilt and shame I had felt had come from outside influences, I had little in the way of a moral compass of my own.  This resulted in me making lots and lots of mistakes.  I finally realized that what I had been taught my whole life was bunk, but instead of keeping the good and throwing out the bad, I just tossed all of it.  I began sinning, kidding myself that, as long as I was the only person I was hurting through my actions, I was still being a "good" person.

Of course, when you self-destruct, it's never just you who you hurt.  You take out everyone who cares about you in a supernova of selfishness.

Fortunately, I got sick of living for myself pretty quickly.  I didn't want to be a screw-up.  I wanted to be a good person.  But I was still afraid of "organized religion", and all its (to me) inherent hypocrisies.

Getting back into the Bible has helped.  I always loved studying the Bible, even as a child, and re-reading it as an adult has helped me get closer to God.  Getting closer to God has helped me develop something I desperately needed:  a sense of conviction.  Not "guilt" from cultural and societal pressures, but an honest sense of what I feel God (through the Holy Spirit and the Bible) is telling me is right and wrong.

To give you an idea, here are some of the things about which I feel convicted, and some of the things I have never felt that God was condemning me for.

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Dealing with the jealous, possessive (little) man in my life...

The other night we were hanging out with my parents before they left for vacation.  My sister cooked a huge, amazing meal, and we had eaten and had a lot of fun.

My younger niece, the 1-year-old, was closing in on bedtime and getting sleepy and cuddly.  She toddled over to where I was playing with the kids on the floor and plopped in my lap.

My son immediately ran over and hugged onto me.  "No!" he chastised her.  "My mama!"

I showed him that there was room for me to cuddle on them both, and that his cousin wasn't going to steal me away from him, but he was still pretty put-out.  That's when I started getting nervous about Sunday.

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Part-time Parent

As I so often mention, I often teach preschool children's church.  And what's so exciting about it, is nothing is ever routine.  I don't always have the same group of kids, and even "regulars", kids I've taught for months, can still surprise me.

I just plain, love toddlers, too.  I get to be around kids ages 2-5, when the world is still new and they're still excited to be learning about it.  And, although I normally don't know them as well as I'd like, I feel such appreciation for the parents who trust me with their little ones on a regular basis.  For a couple of hours a week, they let me take on their role.  I feed their kids, help them to the potty, and instruct them.  And it's a responsibility I appreciate being entrusted with.

I knew this past Sunday was going to be a great lesson days in advance, when I saw the schedule.  I enjoy all the volunteers with whom I serve, but some combinations just work better than others, and I was very happy when I saw who the other two volunteers for this week were.  I ended up letting one of them lead the lesson, because it was one I wasn't sure how to teach dynamically.  (I'm better with puppets and funny voices, and there were no puppets.)

Though there were mishaps, as always, we ended up having such a great day.  Two things in particular happened that just melted my heart.

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on the joys of organized chaos and big-kid friends

As I've mentioned, my son turns 2 in a few weeks.  Though this is a happy event to which I'm greatly looking forward, there's also a lot of stress that goes along with it.  There's presents to buy, a party to plan, food to prepare, and the "I can't believe my baby's turning 2" tears to shed.

Of course, most of his day-to-day routines won't change.  His preschool uses the same schedule for moving classes up as the public school system does so, there at least, he's been in the two-year-old class for weeks.

However, I will admit that I've been very nervous about him moving up from the nursery to preschool children's church.

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Wowee!  A lot has happened since my last post!  Here's a quick holiday weekend recap:

Friday.  Left work a little early and went with some family to see "Cars 2".  Wait for dvd on this one.  Didn't hold the kids' interest, and involved a convoluted plot about Mater being mistaken for a secret agent and a plot by Big Oil to discredit alternative fuel sources.  In a kids' movie.  It's not worth trying to explain the energy crisis to a preschooler.

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Adaptation is my primary survival skill.

After having the prior week off, I was so happy to get to spend time with my children's church preschoolers again this Sunday.  I was especially excited when I saw the lesson plan:  Daniel in the lions' den.

When trying to keep the attentions of multiple 2 to 5-year-olds, stories involving animals are a big help.  Especially fun and/or scary animals like lions.  (Little kids love roaring and growling.  Of course, so do I.)

I asked one of the other volunteers if she would be comfortable reading the part of Daniel for me.  She admitted she hadn't read the lesson, but reluctantly agreed.  So far, so good.

Waiting for class to start, I was very excited to see some kids who hadn't come in a while, some real sweethearts I'd been missing.  We even had extra volunteers, including two older-kid assistants.  Still so far, so good.

We played with toys for a while, then it was time to clean-up and listen to our Bible story.  That was when I realized the problem.

No lesson materials.  No props, no game materials, no stickers.

And no coloring sheets.

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How then, should we pray?

Most adults, particularly those who have been Christians their entire lives, pretty much figure they have praying down-pat.  Maybe some are more formal, starting out with a "Dear heavenly Father", while other people are more casual.  For some reason, I think almost every 20-something girl leading prayer in a group starts off with, "Dear Jesus, we just come to you right now..."

But you know who really has prayer figured out?  Pre-schoolers.  On any given Sunday, my children's church kids range in age from 2 to 5.  Lately, they've all gotten more comfortable, and they all really want to pray.

Of course, it's normally, "Oh, I want to pray!" followed by 30 seconds of throat-clearing, and then something disjointed and totally unrelated to the lesson.  Pretty soon, everyone in the room wants a chance to get to say a prayer.

And I let them.  It may take up a few extra minutes we really don't have, but I'm never going to tell a child, "No, we don't have time for you to pray right now."

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Whoops, forgot to breathe.

Not a lot of time for a post today, as I'm having to prepare for my upcoming, insane weekend.

As I've explained before, my family is large and close-knit (family tree here), so any sort of celebratory occasion becomes a major event.  That's why there are upwards of 30 people attending my baby niece's (Cousin L) first birthday party tomorrow.

So, once I finish my work-week and my weekend starts, here is my schedule:

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I want to be a toddler for a day.

I used to always say that, if I had to come back for another life, I wanted to be a housecat. They live like ancient royalty, with servants waiting on them hand and foot.

But, looking at my son's life, I think it'd be pretty cool to be a toddler again.

My husband is the one who got me thinking about it this morning. It's gotten miserably cold (again), and we both had a hard time getting out of bed for work this morning. While helping my son get his coat on, he said, "Daddy wants to go to preschool with you, and play and nap and have snacktime."

Which really doesn't sound too bad. Do some arts & crafts, listen to storytime...That's an awesome day. And it's not just preschool. My son's weekends are pretty sweet, as well. He lives like a celebrity every day of the year. Let's take a look at his typical Sunday.

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Pregnant is the new black.

We all (at least, all the women) know how it is to get the baby-crazies every once in a while. For me, I'm dealing with the fact that my baby is now really a full-fledge walking, talking (kinda) toddler. Just about every woman at my church is pregnant or just (like, within the past month) had a baby, and one of my best friends is firmly in "I want another baby RIGHT NOW!" mode.

My sister has an adorable little newborn, as well. But still I know the timing's not right and I need to wait until it is. (Till my health is better, till I've been at my job a little longer, till we have more money saved up, till my son's potty-trained, etc.)

But being around all these pregnant women and babies makes me really want the chance to do it over. My pregnancy and delivery of my son were so difficult and traumatic; it'd be nice to get a chance to do things over, with more knowledge, with more attentive doctors...

So I started wondering, is pregnancy really contagious? Obviously not on its own, but do the people around you influence your decision? According to this one workplace study, totally.

Of course, they only studied women in the workplace (as opposed to family, church and social circles, etc.), so I guess I'm lucky to work with 11 guys in my department.

Still though...it's like everyone once in a while all my brain can think is "baby".

Sanitizing the Bible: Explaining ancient Judaic wedding customs to 3-year-olds

Everyone remember the story of Jesus's first miracle? You know...He was at a wedding and the guests were upset because their celebratory beverages were running low, so he turned water into wine. (Or, if you're Southern Baptist, you can pretend it was "grape juice". Just kidding; I love you crazy fundies.)

Anyway, in my preschoolers children's church this past week, we were talking to the kids about helping our friends, like Jesus helped his in the story. Now, every week as we're telling the story, we ask the kids questions to get them to interact, since it would require sorcery or thorazine to get toddlers to sit still quietly for 10 minutes.

Being that I'm one of the teachers, their answers to questions normally border somewhere between "hilarious" and "disastrous". Fortunately, I was not the one telling the story this week, so all I had to do was try to stifle laughter and wrangle younguns (similar to cat-herding) while my friend taught the kids.

Here's what we got:

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