Navigating Sundays

As a minister in the Disciples of Christ, BJ sits at the front of our sanctuary for the entire service.  This means that from 10:40 a.m. to 12:00 noon every Sunday, I'm a single mom.  While I was pregnant with Lydia, I kept thinking to myself, "This is going to get really hard when I have two."  Turns out, I was right.

Here is a quick recap of yesterday's church service.  As soon as the organ started playing to cue people to sit down, Lydia decided she was hungry, but not just hungry: she was in fact famished.  I left Shepherd on our pew with Steve and Lana and went to the small sitting room in our ladies' bathroom to nurse Lydia.  After a quick feeding, I returned to the sanctuary.  About 10 minutes after returning, Lydia wet a diaper and demanded I change it.  I got up to leave once again, but Shepherd quickly made it clear that if I left without him again, he would be deeply heartbroken.  So to avoid a scene, I took him with us back to the ladies' room.

I changed Lydia, and decided to nurse her just long enough to put her to sleep before returning.  While nursing her, Shepherd snuck into the connecting bathroom.  He came back with a wet hand.  Guess how it got wet?  I cleaned him up one handed without Lydia ever stopping her nursing (she had apparently decided to make this intended snack a drawn out feast) and returned to the sitting room bench.  Shepherd then started examining some artificial flowers in a large, beautiful vase that decorated the space.  After pulling one flower for closer examination, the vase fell to the tile floor and crashed into a hundred pieces.  I was mortified.  Lydia was still eating.  About five seconds after the crash, a wonderful woman (another young mother) came running into the bathroom to check on us.  She was gracious enough to sweep up the mess.

Just as the mess was cleaned, Lydia unlatched and immediately pooped.  Of course, as luck would have it, I was fresh out of wet wipes.  So after putting my boobs back in place, grabbing the diaper bag and Lydia, and holding Shepherd's hand, I started to journey over to the nursery.  On the way, I took communion at the back of the church.  When I got to the nursery, Shepherd immediately feared I was going to leave him there and broke down sobbing (he has recently decided that he wants to be in church for the entire service).  I had to pass Lydia off while I comforted him, but I was finally able to change her diaper and we headed back to the service.

We made it for the beginning of BJ's sermon.  I laid Lydia next to me on the pew and Shepherd set on my lap happily eating bunny grahams and watching his dad.  Of course, by this time Lydia was tired from eating then peeing then eating then pooping.  So she lost it.  Shepherd was totally un-phased by this and just stayed right on my lap not caring that I needed to comfort his sister.  I managed to get Lydia into an awkward side hold that allowed for some semblance of bouncing.  She found it all very unsatisfying.  Thankfully, one of the ladies came and offered to take Lydia for a walk.  Lydia immediately fell asleep and the remaining 10 minutes of the service where uneventful.

Needless to say, by the end of this I was fried, but what I kept telling myself was that I could not let this really horrible, no good, very bad morning get to me.  The fact is, any standards we mothers put on ourselves and our babies is put on by us and/or societal expectations.  God sure as heck isn't doing it.  He just cares that we were there and we were trying.  My hope is that seeing the preacher's family in total disarray will make everyone else feel a little more comfortable when it is their kids having the especially bad morning.

Next Sunday, me and my two hooligans will be back with my total lack of knowing what I'm doing and their total lack of sophistication to worship God again.  I'm actually not at all sure that what we did yesterday morning wasn't worship.  Lydia was fully and unabashedly human.  God loves that.  Shepherd was curious about the world around him while also totally devoted to being with his parents while they did this weird thing they do once a week.  God loves that, too.  As for me, I was being humbled by the incredible chaos my beautiful children are capable of creating.  I think that might just be worship, too.