Some of you may have noticed. Those of you that attend church with us anyways... that Jer and I are struggling to come on a consistant basis.
We may make excuses when asked directly why we weren't there ...
Caring friend:"Why weren't you at church last week?"While this is technically true, I think that had we truly wanted to go to church, we would have been there.
Myself: "Well, you see, it was the last time my kids
would get to see my parents for a couple of weeks due to them going to China and
there was no other time to go to see them except during church. And I know my kids would have been really mad if they didn't see them before
they left on their trip."
Don't get me wrong... I believe all that is being taught. In fact, I team teach the five year olds.
The thing is, I have this almost entirely selfish attitude I'm struggling with. It has to do with the fact that that:
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G tends to have issues going to his own class when I sit right behind him in the opening excersises and he spends almost the whole time looking at me or trying to get my attention.
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That Missy My still has potty accidents as far as #2 goes (She has #1 down pat) and she tends to have these accidents in nursery and for the life of me I have a hard time putting her in Pull-Ups during this time because I feel like that would be enabling her to continue to resist actually using the potty.
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It also has to do with the fact that Li is still breastfeeding and if I can get him to nurse during the first meeting he might fall asleep for Jer, but if not then Jer is stuck with a crying baby out in the foyer that he can't do much for (Li still won't take a sippy I don't know what I'm going to do with him), but even if Jer can get him to sleep, Jer can't move once Li is asleep or he wakes up. This does away with moving between meetings. So Jer ends up missing ALL of his meetings except Sacrament and even in that meeting both he and I are constantly paying attention to the kidlets.
So, while I believe church is a good thing, especially for my kids, if it were only about me and not about my kids learning about Christ, morals, values, a good way to live life, and all that fun stuff from someone other than mom and dad... to be honest, I probably wouldn't go at all for a while.
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Give me strength!
5 comments:
Yeah, in this phase, I sometimes feel like I'm inactive. Nat does, too. We talk about it a lot. I usually try to stick it out, simply because I feel really guilty. I'd rather sit in the foyer for three hours than go home, because it makes me feel less guilty. Everything I do is to avoid guilt. :) When Ben hopefully mentions that we should skip church, I just say, dude, I need the blessings from going. So desperately. So we go.
It really is hard right now, with the age of the kids. And I think it will still be hard. But nothing is worth doing if it's easy to do. Okay, I think I totally messed that saying up, but it's something along those lines. Just keep going and sticking it out, and eventually it will get easier.
You know, I am actually having a hard time going to church myself right now. It has nothing to do with the kids for me, I am having emotional issues having to do with Samoa. All these emotions come out for me while I am sitting in Sacrament Meeting and I have an overwhelming urge to run screaming from the chapel. I have even tried just skipping sacrament meeting and just going to Primary and that helps. It also doesn't help that church for us is at 8:30am and is 20 minutes away. So, I sympathize with the feeling of not wanting to go to church sometimes. Please give us both strength!
We are the exact same way. Hall dwellers and it makes you wonder why you're even there. I take Mitchell though he's a good church goer!
O.K. you guys, cut yourselves some slack. Being the parents of little children is an awesomely hard job, your life is not your own, you are constantly in the service of your children, which also means you are constantly in the service of God.
When my kids were little my mom used to tell me that I was in the season of little children, you know, like "to everything there is a season...". When you are in the season of little children you do the best you can do, stop guilting yourselves if you don't have the energy left to get to church and deal with the block schedule which is so much harder on kids than the way that I grew up!
Things change as they get older, church gets a little easier, other things get harder, you need church more to help reinforce what they are learning at home. When they are little you are their favorite teacher. So what if G sits with you in primary and goes to class with you, it won't hurt a thing and will make him feel more secure to be with his mom, he'll grow out of it, promise!
You moms and dads of small children are doing an amazing job. I see and notice what you do, what your kids are learning at home, how hard you work and how hard you try to do the right things. I am enormously impressed and I so enjoy being around you all each week. So, please, please stop stressing about not being able to do everything, just remember what season you are in and don't be so hard on yourself!
Heidi S.
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