Church Services and Children

I have discovered that attending church services with children is quite the undertaking.  I think I have a new appreciation for couples with young children that attend church services.  Today I attended a Maundy Thursday church service while on vacation in Canada.  The service went well.  I got to hold Asher, my friend’s infant son throughout the service as they were both either helping in it or leading it.  Asher of course chose this opportune moment to pee through his outfit.  It didn’t get on me, except it presented the challenge of changing his diaper.  I do change diapers but he wears clothe diapers.  I love the idea of clothe diapers.  Cheaper in the long run but tons of work.  The newer cloth diapers are not just your old white cloths with safety pins that poke.  I’ve never seen so many snaps on a diaper, you could probably form it into any type of shape of clothing depending on how you snap them.

After figuring out constructing a diaper and changing his clothes I went back into the church sanctuary to sit with my friend who was now back at our seats.  Now that Asher was happy, my other toddler godson, Judah, was running around in the back row at church reorganizing all the hymnals in the pews.  He randomly came across a magazine in the back of the row which his aunt tossed over to me so I hid behind my back sandwiching it between me and the pew so that he couldn’t find it and start ripping it apart. 

So here I am sitting at church hiding a magazine by sitting in front of it leaning against the pew.  This was a perfect plan to keep my godson away from the magazine, and it did work.  Part of the service however included a communion service.  During the communion service we left our seats in order to take communion.  As I stood up to leave my seat the magazine fell down on the pew from behind my back, proudly displaying People’s latest addition of “The Hottest Country Men” with a very attractive picture of Keith Urban on the front.  I’m hoping that the usher I awkwardly locked eyes with once the magazine fell from behind my back didn’t notice it.  But how could you ignore a giant picture of Keith Urban being hidden in church? I look forward to kids and marriage someday....but don't know how they keep up with all of it.  I told my friend and their pastor later that I don't know how young families have energy to keep up with their kids.  They both agreed that once you have kids you just seem to find the energy and patience out of necessity...somewhat driven by guilt.  This is so true... probably in more areas of life than just parenting too.  So good to see my close friends and kids for a week though.  Enjoying Canada and looking forward to the beautiful road trip back through the Rockies to Olympia tomorrow.