Vacation Bible School may be the death of me. My son appears to have suffered from selective hearing loss during the 3 and half hours we've spent at church each night this week. He can't hear me screaming, "No, Carson! We have to stay seated until all our friends are finished eating." "Carson, come back! The other kids are still working on crafts." "Carson! We do not climb under the pews!" We've made several trips to the hallway for timeouts each night. Timeouts work on other kids. Carson is immune. Last night's conversation went something like this:
"Carson, if you don't stay on the carpet squares and dance with other kids, we'll have to call Daddy to take you home."
"Ok, I'll go with Daddy."
"You won't get to come back to Bible school for the rest of the week if you can't listen to Mommy."
"Ok, I'll play at my house."
These are not the responses I was going for. Next year, I may be taking a break from Bible school for many reasons. Hopefully, my child will have matured into a mindful 4-year-old by then. I definitely won't be helping in his classroom any more. It also drives me crazy to see all of these mothers of preschoolers, who are all members of my church, drop their toddlers off at 5:15 and not show their faces again until 8:30. I'm not sure why this still amazes me, but I still look at them in disbelief when they disappear for 3 hours of child-free solitude each evening, without giving a second thought staying to help with the other 100 children enrolled in VBS. I want to scream, "'This is your church! Could you maybe help out a night or two once in a blue moon???" (Get ready Becky! You're time is coming next week!) I need to shut up and consider myself lucky that I have it together enough to ALWAYS be in that 10% of the population that does 100% of the work. Keep that in mind if you need some help. I hardly ever say "No".
Enough with the ranting. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel ends with the concluding program tomorrow evening. Last year Carson made his way all around the altar area by climbing through the legs of all of the older kids. I'll be happy if he stands for a single song this year. We'll see! The joys of VBS!
Enough ranting
2 comments:
I had the exact same conversation with Eva Friday morning at our VBS. "Honey, you need to stop crying and stay with your class. Don't you want to be a big girl? Do you want me to have to call mommy and tell her to come get you?" Her response: "Yes! I want you to call my mommy! I want to go home with mommy!" I've got to stop using that tactic.
Yes, and earlier in the week when she was fussing about getting ready, I said, "If you keep behaving like this, you'll have to go to the nursery with the babies instead of your big girl class." Eva's quick reply was, "I want to be with the babies!!!" Again, we need to learn new tactics. She just loved VBS so much most of the time, they seemed like good threats at the time!
Brooke
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