Sorry for the dearth in posts, folks. Katie, Eleanor, and I spent a lovely Spring Break with my wife’s family in Charleston. We had a great time, but traveling with a 9-1/2 month old is an exhausting process, which, combined with the great food and great company, meant that I had little time for writing.
Also, in an attempt to supplement our income (to pay for the coming-soon music lessons, swim lessons, etc.), I have begun putting out feelers for freelance writing/editing work. That means I’m putting together resumes, writing sample passages for prospective companies, and generally trying to pull my professional self together. More posts are coming soon.
In the meantime: Churchgoing with infants? Discuss.
Eleanor’s first Easter was hard. Our beloved daughter looked gorgeous in her first Easter dress, and I wore a suit for the first time in six months. Katie looked beautiful in a blue dress of her own. We even brought a camera to church so we could take some fancy Easter family pictures.
Eleanor didn’t last five minutes into the service before she started crying/whining. I still don’t know what happened, but we didn’t even bother socializing with friends after the service was over. We scooped the kid into our arms, threw her into her car seat and drove home, during which time she promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half. We guess she was tired?
Going to church with a baby seems to get harder the older she gets. She can’t sit still. She wants to stand, sit, creep, crawl, walk, cry, be carried, socialize -- all at once. Sometimes, the music is too loud for her, or she can’t keep quiet during the Pastor’s sermon. And it’s not like we can silence her. She’s pretty advanced socially (she even has a social laugh, which she pulls out when other people are laughing but she doesn’t know what they’re laughing about -- it’s incredible), but she doesn’t really understand social graces and proper church behavior. So, Katie and I take turns leaving the sanctuary to change a diaper or to let her run around in the lobby and investigate the plants scattered around the church.
I’m hoping this gets easier again, soon, but I have my doubts. I love our church, and I love going to the service, but sometimes it feels like it’s really hard to get something out of the experience.
My wife had a great conversation with her mom on the phone after our difficult morning:
“Mom, I honestly have no idea what the Easter sermon was about,” my wife said. “Something about hope?”
“Umm...maybe it was about, ‘Christ is risen?’” joked my mother-in-law.
Kidding aside, the point is well taken. We don’t always get everything we want to out of the “church experience.” Sometimes we’re distracted. Or we have to leave because our kids are having meltdowns. But we still go, and sometimes, that’s enough.
Why?
We go because it doesn’t matter if we’re always paying attention to every detail about the sermon. We are in the Lord’s house, and that’s what matters. We go because this is our community. We go because we are surrounded by people who love us and love our daughter, even when she’s going crazy. We go because we follow Jesus. We go because there’s always a part of the service we can cling to, whether it’s a hymn or the Lord’s Prayer or the bits and pieces of the sermon we can focus on.
I want my daughter to grow up in this church community. An interesting point: Katie took Eleanor up for the Children’s Message, which featured a clever take on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She was rapt with attention. She might have gotten more out of that message than we did for the whole service.
By the way, we did get those fancy Easter family photos. I took them. In our house. With the timer on the camera. After Eleanor’s nap.
And you know what? They turned out pretty good.
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