Sunday is Funday!

My head hurts wit h a capital URTZ. I'm trying in vain to sleep it off in a house full of children. Melody, as sweet-spirited as ever, is tenderly kissing my temple in an effort to make the sinus misery subside, but I don't have the heart to tell her that all it's doing is making it harder for me to slip into the glorious state of unconciousness that is my only hope for healing.

I don't know why I could POSSIBLY have a headache, after all I only left church twice this morning with a screaming, raging boy child. The first time, he did not like that Daddy had left to go get something, and began shouting his NOs in rapid-fire succession long before the first song had ended.

I leave the kind person behind us with the girls and march him out. I trust her, her four children have made it through church alive for decades now, and the girls are happy to be with their grown-up friend.

Charlie and I sit in the chapel, hoping his sobs don't make it through the two layers of wall between us and the auditorium. He agrees to, 'be quiet, sit next to daddy' and we re-enter only ten minutes later.

All is well until the communion begins. Charlie, offended by the silly notion that he should not partake in the Bread and Body of Christ, lunges for the tray as it is whisked past them and begins to scream hysterically, 'I want it! I want it NOW!' Again, I usher him through the chapel before the stares of hundreds.

He soon is willing to be silent enough to go back to his place at daddy's side, but I ask him to wait a bit longer. I mentally calculate enough time for the Fruit of the Vine and the Plate of the Money to pass by our pew and am about to brave re-entry when I realize that he is snuggling in so deeply and limply that he must be nearly asleep.

For the second time in his life, I rock my baby boy to sleep and feel the twitches of surrender through his little body. The boy who resists touch is now draped over me.

Slowly, I rise, testing little movements one at a time. I reenter the church, but don't dare go sit by the girls who, inevitably, will do something to awaken the boy. For the first time in months, I know what the sermon was about. I heard ALL of it.