Holy Terror

Today at church, Jacob would not play quietly and would not close his little mouth. He babbled, jabbered, then fussed and finally cried. The whole time he was moving like a crazy person. Wiggly squiggly so much that I could barely handle him. I imagine it to be much like trying to catch a greased up pig in the county fair. Finally, I took him out of sacrament meeting to feed him. I was back in time for the prayer on the sacrament. He was still a bit wiggly so I put him on my knee and bounced him a bit to keep him busy. He leaned forward and grabbed the top of the bench in front of us and was happy for a minute or two until he got too loud. I lifted him in a multi-tasking sort of way to attempt to reposition him, check his diaper and quiet him down. None of those goals were accomplished. Without me realizing it, he had grabbed the shelf that holds the hymnals. As I lifted him up, he pulled the entire shelf up with him and the screws came out of the bench, crashing the entire shelf and the two hymn books it held to the floor. The two screws rolled onto the ground. Now I tried, I really did, but it was darn funny. In that quiet moment of introspection that people were trying to have, I was about to lose it. I had to cover my mouth to keep myself under control as did the Helmick girls across the aisle from me. Sad thing is, the Helmicks were across the aisle when Maddie did the same thing a few years ago. If I didn't know they love us, I'd be mortified for them to have seen my kids destroy the pews, not once, but twice. Finally, I decided it was just best to leave. I took my greased up little pig with his motor mouth out to the lobby where I finished the sacrament. Of course, then I was able to check his diaper, which proved to be messy. After the sacrament, I snuck back into the chapel to nab a diaper and wipes from the bag. I sheepishly ducked back out, again, fearing I was becoming to appear to the other congregants the circus act that I certainly felt like. One clean diaper later, I settled into the chairs in the lobby to listen to the remainder of the service. Once I gave up on sitting with my family, I quite enjoyed the speakers. They reminded us that if family is the most important thing in our lives, we ought to probably quit putting off spending time with them for dumb things that don't really matter. Gotta do better at that. At least I had some quality time chasing our little holy terror, I mean Jacob in the lobby today. Does that count?