To be fair, this Sunday went pretty well. Usually, though, I find them to be the most exhausting day of the week. Day of rest my eye. Last week seemed to especially illustrate that. I spent the morning preparing my lesson for Gospel Doctrine, where I had been asked to substitute. I thought I had things more or less together as we drove to church, until I looked down to see that I was wearing two different shoes. I'd noticed I was walking a little funny as I'd approached the car, but thought it was because I had my Addilicious on my hip. We were about to turn into the parking lot, and all I could do was scream, "We have to go home! We have to go home!" Bracken hurriedly made a U-turn, thinking something was more seriously wrong than just a fashion emergency.
Shoes changed, we ended up on the back row of the very full chapel, late for church. We did make it in time for the Sacrament, but that's another problem in and of itself. A couple weeks ago, Chloe took the bread as it came by, and then deliberately took a second piece. Bracken and I both made the mistake of laughing. The next Sunday, she went for a handful. We spent the next Sunday trying to keep a really close eye on the trays as they passed (I'm always afraid anyway that she's going to dump her water cup right into another cup). This day, she only took one piece of bread, but as the deacon walked away, a piece fell out on the seat next to Chloe. Talk about your best laid plans. She was thrilled. We spent the rest of the meeting like we always do, attempting to keep Chloe from flashing the congregation.
Bracken attempted to stay in the classroom with me while I taught, but that ended before class even started since Addie has been a bit clingy lately. I started my lesson with an object lesson that was supposed to establish the value of having two witnesses. I had a bag, and told the class that I had an original copy of the Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour album, with the full story book, and asked the class if they believed me. I then asked a class member to come up and verify that I indeed had it in there, thus proving that two witnesses are better than one. Except that my second witness denied that I had the album in the bag. She was mistaken, I tried to recover, but the whole object lesson was sabotaged. I think the rest of the lesson went well, but I wished I'd had a better start.
For the third hour, I took Addie so Bracken could fulfill his calling. We made it through part of the lesson, but before long, Addie was being Addie, and drowning out the teacher, so I got up and left. I met the nursery leader coming down the hall with Chloe, and some wet panties wrapped in paper towel. I took the parcel and my daughter, and walked out the door. As far as I was concerned, church was over.
Today was less eventful, but did start with Chloe waking up hysterical at 4:30, screaming for milk, and rejecting the water I offered. Church ended with Chloe in timeout in nursery. Honestly, I'm not enjoying three years old so far. I can't figure out if it's something I've done as a parent, or if it's just the age, but wow, I wish I knew where my sweet Chloe is hiding. She occasionally resurfaces and tells me she "lubs" me in the cutest voice, but then we quickly return to the "No, I do it myself"'s, "I no want to"'s, and "Mom, you make me crazy!"'s.
Buy she does still make me laugh. Lately she's been asking for pumpernickel. I haven't had a clue where she came up with that, or if she has any idea what she's really asking for. I figured out that Goofy often says pumpernickel, but that still wouldn't give her any idea what it is. Well, now I know that in Chloe-ese, pumpernickel=popsicle. I wonder what she'd do if I actually gave her some hard brown bread instead.
