In an attempt to find a church to attend with Eddie, I took him to a service in La Grange this morning. We arrived at 8:55, signed in as guests, took a kid's bag of crayons and stickers, and sat in the back corner next to the exit. We sat until 9:00, when the church bell rang and the first hymn began. Eddie sat quietly listening to the song. When it was over, you could hear a pin drop except for Eddie, who applauded loudly and yelled "YAAAAYYY!!!"
We sat for several minutes listening to the welcome and the readings, with Eddie growing more squirmy by the minute. He ate all his grahm crackers and finished coloring with the crayons. As he left the pew to go inspect the stained glass windows, the pastor called for the children to come to the front. The pastor sat down and the Sunday school teacher sat down on the steps with about 8 children ranging from Eddie's age to elementary school age. Eddie sat down right next to the teacher and yelled "HI!" to the congregation. As she began to speak to the children, he stood back up and went over to hug a little girl who looked like she was about his age. The little girl dodged him, so he turned around and went up to the pastor. I'm not sure whether he said "I like..." or "I am..." but all I heard was "LIGHTNING MCQUEEN!!!" The pastor just nodded. At this point, I was desparately holding back gut-wrenching laughter with tears squeezing out of the corners of my eyes and motioning feverishly for Eddie to come to me.
Eddie then backed up and noticed the candles on the altar. They were the church kind with the metal around the wicks, and the flames were about 5 feet over Eddie's head. He proceeded to puff up his chest and blow at them like enormous birthday candles. He tried this about 3 times, then gave up and wandered close enough for me to reach over the communion bench and grab him. Still shaking with unreleased laughter and with a burning face, I took him back to our cookie- and crayon-strewn pew. I have no idea what the rest of the children's message was, but we completely disrupted it.
When I tried to sit Eddie down again he wrenched loose to go back over to those stained glass windows. We were through. I grabbed our stuff, grabbed Eddie, and carried him out the door. I politely thanked the usher standing at the door, took Eddie outside to the steps, sat down and laughed until I cried with Eddie staring at me and grinning. Eddie's first church experience had lasted 17 minutes before we had to bail. We went to see the train car on the square on the way home. We will continue to shop for a nice church with more young children and a congregation who would have found Eddie being Eddie as funny as I did...
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."Matthew 19:14
Eddie has started preschool! He cries when he's dropped off, but he's always happy as soon as Kyle or I leave. I've been so incredibly busy it's been hard to get these blogs updated, but they are a priority for me. They are my "journal" for remembering what happened... when did the boys start crawling, walking, talking, get their first tooth, and everything else. So there will be more pictures very soon.
