Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

(Sorry, long post. Apparently I can't ponder quickly)

I've been thinking about all of the reasons that I love taking my children with me to church.

I love sharing with them the most important, sacred things in my life. I love sharing the things that mean the most to me and hoping that even if they don't end up believing the way I do, at least they will understand me a little better. I love having a child on my hip or tugging my hand while I try and navigate those socially awkward moments with church folk. (You know, people you see all the time but don't know that well. . . hug? handshake? perfunctory head nod? All forgiven when you are also juggling a baby.)

Plus, I love what they learn. The simple lessons that God loves them unconditionally, that they are valuable, delightful children of God and that their potential is limitless. I love the songs they come home singing and the handmade cards on Mother's Day. I also love that they are learning how to be part of an audience; how to sit quietly even when the speaker isn't particularly interesting, how to wait until a break to get a drink, how to be in front of an audience yourself, how to participate.

I've been thinking about all this because of how NOT fun it actually is to take my children to church sometimes. Especially now that we've added little number three to our pew.

(Another fun fact about church folk - most of them love babies, which is wonderful; except that we have a lay ministry. Meaning that the church is run by the congregation and almost everyone has a job(calling) of some kind. So nice old Sister JoJo might be oozing germs and running a fever of 107, but she has to come to church because, "Who would pass out the programs?" And, by the way, she wants to hold the baby. But I digress.)

I stayed home from church for over a month with the new baby. My first Sunday back was also the Sunday we blessed Lily, (more on that later) so she was in this gorgeous dress and I was new at packing a diaper bag.

Some fun facts.

• I forgot the wipes.
• The baby filled her diaper three times in the first hour, soiling said gorgeous dress and all the diapers I had brought.
• I'm breastfeeding, so I spent the time I wasn't changing diapers or washing things in the bathroom, in the thoughtfully provided mother's room half clothed.
• The three-year-old is toilet training, but apparently his nursery(Sunday school for 18mo to 3year-olds) teachers either don't know or don't care that when he says he needs to go it means RIGHT NOW.
• He was also a little sick, as in he doesn't have that much bowel control to begin with so take him to the bathroom RIGHT RIGHT NOW.
• When we picked him up he was walking a little funny and his teacher says, "Well, we only had about five minutes of church left, so we figured we didn't need to come get you."
• We walked to church - so jumping in the car and taking care of the mess at home was not an option.
• I spent almost all of the three hours of church in the bathroom cleaning up after my children.

And I thought to myself, This is what I do: I smile pleasantly to nicely dressed church folk while cleaning up poo.

Hooray for motherhood.

So I've been trying to remind myself why I put myself through this in the first place.