Sunday Talk

Brett spoke on Sunday and I was the "lucky" one sitting with the kids on the bench. It's almost worth giving a talk to not have to sit down there by yourself and make sure Kaze doesn't hit someone with that pen she just launched.
Brett did a great job, and every once in a while our eyes would connect, usually while Kaze was yelling, "I go home now!" I could see he was grateful for the opportunity of giving a talk and sitting on the stage and we laughed to ourselves at the loudness of our kids. By "our kids" I mean Kaze.
Seth, as usual, sat perfectly quiet, shifting only when body limbs were falling asleep or Kaze was coming down on his head. Jeb, who sometimes talks to himself in an effort to play and keep himself occupied actually fell asleep about 20 minutes into the meeting. Janey, who is usually about as loud as Kaze and causes her to yell because Janey is either forcing Kaze to sit on her lap, or giving Kaze a kiss when she clearly doesn't want one, made a record for how quiet she can be.

Yet, Kaze managed to make enough noise and commotion for all. She yelled, threw her bag of snacks all around, crawled under the bench to retrieve them, hit Jeb while he was sleeping, pulled Seth's hair, pushed Janey and pulled her hair when Janey tried stopping her for leaving our row. Finally she threw a pen (luckily no one was sitting behind us). It bounced off the back of the bench and landed. The family two rows back flinched then laughed. I noticed though, they waited till the end of the meeting to return the pen. They no doubt saw she had a good arm and didn't want to chance having her try again.
Brett did an excellent job, and I enjoyed listening to him. However, it would have been easier had Kaze not been yelling in my ear for half of it.
Don't get me wrong, it is worth going to church even when I want to hide or pretend I can't hear or see what they are doing. I look at Jeb, who use to be pretty hard during church and I find relief in knowing Kaze's fits probably won't last forever, as long as I separate Janey and Kaze :)

*A Knew revelation I have had since being a mother.
When I was a kid sitting in church, I would often be talking to those sitting by me and my Dad would lean over and say, "SSHHHH" (yes, I do know where my girls get it from.)
I would always look at my Dad and acknowledge I heard him by nodding and saying ok. Then I would turn and keep talking. Without fell a few minutes later I would get thumped in the head. I could never understand why, until I became a mom. When he was saying, "SSHHH" he wasn't telling me to talk quieter, as I had always thought. He was telling me to STOP TALKING. Now I know and it only took me 30 some years :)

Jeb was just telling me a story, and about half way through he asked, "why aren't you laughing?" I guess it was a funny story and I wasn't really paying attention. after that though, I made sure to smile in the right places and even laughed once. Jeb stopped his story, looked up and said, "Good job for laughing." I think he was in serious concern for my personality.