Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Pastor & Mom: The Follow Up...

Turns out Marcus wasn't able to leave work early so I was on my own with Eli and Emerson for the Ash Wednesday Service this evening.

It started out mostly okay. We went over to the church an hour early so I could do some set-up and prep. Eli & Emmy love the church and they had a great time running all over.

Of course for some reason they decided to revert to babyhood and played with the potting soil in a plant. They know better. I have no idea what they were doing. I swept and of course their response to that was, "See, all better mama." (Well in fairness that was Emerson's response, Eli said "Sorry mama".

The service was interesting. It was a one woman show tonight.

Marcus wasn't there to do my audiovisual stuff, not the mention he wasn't there to handle the children.

My music person wasn't there either.

So it was all on me.

The powerpoint and music would have been enough without Eli and Emerson...

Eli wandered around up by the pulpit, took my keys and was swinging them around loudly, and he also may have turned my microphone up... and Emerson just wanted me to hold her the whole time.

THE ENTIRE TIME

Eli eventually went to sit with his sunday school teacher and once he stopped moving he ended up like this:
Notice he got his ashes, but my sweet boy needs his sleep and the service started at 7pm which is his bedtime.

One less child to worry about. 

Which brings me back to Emerson. Did I mention I held her the entire time.

Through my sermon, during the ashes, during communion, during all of it. 

You have no idea how incredibly exhausting and distracting this is.

Remember, she's not an infant. She's almost three years old, and she can talk, and intentionally grab things, she asks me questions in the middle of sermons and prayers, she wants up and down, and down and up.

I somehow managed to get through the service. I heard good things but maybe my congregation is just being kind haha. My back is in pain, but I did it.

As an aside Emerson had her first communion tonight.

Since I was holding her as a I served she saw everyone else getting bread and grape juice and she wanted some too.

And since in my tradition we have an open communion table and all are invited, including children she had communion.

They grow so fast haha I didn't have my first communion until 7th grade.




2 comments:

Jessica White said...

Sadie you really are wonder woman! Ave had her first communion last week...she was interested.

Sarah M. said...

if I was in your congregation, I would have just been incredibly impressed. Wow. I can't imagine how hard that was.