Observations of a Sunday

Just read a blog over at a new find about expectations. My #1 Article of Desperation is as follows: We Believe in Lowering Any and All Expectations During Sacrament Meeting. It is just not reasonable to expect my recovering-from-bronchitis-two-year-old to behave for an hour and ten minute meeting. In an overcrowded, stuffy room. Right before lunchtime. On a Daylight Savings day. (We sprung forward!)

We had to sit in time-out THREE TIMES in the Valiant A classroom. Luckily they have cute decorations to distract me as I frantically hummed "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" to calm myself down. It completely broke my heart to see my sweet, unfailingly cheerful towhead SAD. Ouro Branco doesn't merely jut out his lower lip - he pouts his entire chin. In the words of the great Napoleon Dynamite, he didn't FEEL GOOOOOD.

I struggle with myself. I know it's asking too much for him to sit with arms folded and contemplate the Atonement. In his mood today, it was too much for him to just sit. He was throwing toys, hitting, screaming, the whole shebang. I can't ALLOW it, but somehow I felt bad punishing him when I knew he couldn't possibly be obedient. It's like putting a crying 6-month-old in time out. There's no point. He was past learning today. I learned later that he didn't even go to nursery. Sat on My Man's lap while he did priesthood interviews.

For the past, oh, four years since I've received my Mommy License, I've pined for an uplifting sacrament meeting. One where I can sing all the hymn's verses without dictating whose turn it is for the red Hot Wheels car. Pray with my eyes shut. Listen to speakers - and maybe even take notes. Take the sacrament with my thoughts centered on Christ - not the wet willy Little Prince is giving me.

But I've decided to change my perspective on things. If I don't EXPECT to be uplifted, I won't be disappointed when it doesn't happen, right? I will no longer refer to sacrament meeting as such. It will henceforth be known as Principles of Mommydom. I will use that hour to teach my children reverence - even if the lesson takes place on the hard chairs of the Valiant A classroom.

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We had three baptisms yesterday. (Three last week and THIRTEEN the week before.) Guess who got baptized? Mini-Felicity's parents. They also got married yesterday.

Sidenote: Almost no one gets married in this blessed country o' mine. It's too expensive and getting a divorce is double the price - and takes months to do. Most people just live together, though they call each other husband and wife. I've seen couples be together for twenty years and have four or five kids before getting married.

So anywhoo, mini-Felicity's parents got hitched yesterday. And Steve and I were their "padrinhos" - essentially maid-of-honor and best man. You HAVE to read the link to understand why this is thoroughly, hilariously ironic.

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I love my young women. I have 22 girls and 4 investigators who come to everything.

I have girls who have been raped - one by her father. I have girls who have been horribly abused by their parents - physically and emotionally. I have girls who've done drugs, drank, smoked, and one who lost her virginity at thirteen. I have girls who have cut themselves in depression. Run away. Girls with drunk fathers or prostitute mothers. I have a girl whose step-father tried to commit suicide. (I helped clean up the blood afterwards.) Fifteen year olds whose mothers are 29.

But the gospel really - truly - changes people. I have the most beautiful girls in the world. Their spirits shine out their eyes, giving me faith in the changing, cleansing power of the Atonement and hope in the rising generation. I am a witness to the fact that they are Chosen in every sense of the word.