Some People Never Learn...

I might have seen the warning signs, if I'd paid attention.

Ok, I did see the warning signs, but chose to ignore them.  Mind over matter, right?

Breakfast was ok.  I let the kids have straws in their cereal so slurp up the milk.

Silly Charlie blew a HUGE mound of milk bubbles, all over the breakfast bar.

Sarina didn't eat the pancakes she demanded I make.

She then proceeded to dirty more than the necessary dishes to make herself (and generously for her siblings) breakfast smoothies. 

Those lucky siblings then smeared that all over the breakfast bar.  At least the milk bubbles had company on there, right?

For some reason (that currently escapes me) I was a terribly mean mommy and Sarina was going to go live at the fire station.

She walked all the way to the end of the driveway and stood there for a while.

Then hauled out a large piece of cardboard from the barn, sat in the middle of the driveway, and mulled things over for a while.  Then put the cardboard back and came home. 

Must have been too far to walk.

I tried to dress the kids for church.

It was a special day- baptisms for two sweet kids whose families we love, and I said we'd be there.

Darn it we were going to be there!

Elsa would NOT put on her dress, that I pressed.

And if you know me, that NEVER happens (clarification: the pressing dresses part).

After much wrangling, and attempting, and bribing- and with my mom and aunt (?) watching- I caved and let her pick what she wanted to wear.

Fortunately, her "I heart Oly" shirt was dirty as were her "black shorts" (pajama bottoms) her latest go-to outfit.

She settled on her light pink sailor pants and a blue and white striped tunic (NO belt!).

Fine.

We load in the car, my mom and aunt (?) willing to wait in the Top Foods parking lot with the bunch so I could zip in to get baptism cards (nothing like last minute).

50 "Get in the car and buckle up!"s later we were ready to go.

No keys.

I looked all through my purse- once, twice... no dice.

I ran upstairs and looked in my shorts pockets.

Nope.

Back to the car to re-check my purse and cupholders.

Nah.

Inside- scour the countertop.

Nada.

Inform my mom and aunt (?) forget it.

Back to the car- "Mom, these keys?"  Carl's holding up my one and only car key.

And we were back on.

We ran our errand, made it to church in time.  Chit chatted the mother of a kid I went to pre-school with(!) and settled into the first pew that appeared to have enough room for us to squeeze into much closer to front and center than I would have preferred.  But once that train of kids heads one direction it takes a minor miracle to change course, plus the people sharing the pew are super nice:)  Except that our joining the pew bumped the poor dad out of a seat- so he sat up front by himself:(  I should have offered to trade places with him...

Several fun spiritual songs and a reading later it was sermon time.

The time that is so pleasant without kids but can be sheer torture with little ones fighting over the two pencil stubs within reach.  Or making armpit farts with the backs of their knees.  Or hanging out in the aisle trying to climb into the pew by way of the armrest.

Then comes a thoughtful friend trying to help out by swooping in and taking one of the kids to sit with them an aisle over.  Which was great.

Until Charlie was ready to come back to inflict a little more torture on mama...

but got lost...

RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE PULPIT!

The Pastor actually stopped his sermon for about 5 seconds while Charlie located us in the congregation and came back to us.

UGH!

But it was SO VERY WORTH IT!

I got to see two sweet, sweet kids stand up and knowingly make the choice to choose Jesus and live a Christian life.

I got to see an amazing little video of each one say why they were making their choice.

I got to see them wade into the water, get dunked, and come up sputtering.

And it brought tears to my eyes.

It was super, completely, and totally worth the slow torture of the sermon time to witness something so magical.

It was my first Baptist baptism.  And now I get the name.

It was spectacular.

I'm so proud of you Sam and Kelbe!  I know you both will do amazing things in your life, made possible by Him.

So- what's a little chaos spread around a poor unsuspecting church congregation (that isn't my home parish)?

Such a magical event when you let the chaos blur to background.

I'm so glad that I chose mind over matter.