A Music Sample

 I’ve told you before that we have some pretty famous people who come to our church. The kids’ personal favorite is Santa Claus, but we often see Austin Collie from the Indianapolis Colts. His in-laws live on my street and his little guy is so cute! When Shawn Bradley played in the NBA, his in-laws lived on our street too, although they have since moved away.

Steve and Lisa James

It’s not just professional athletes; we have entertainers too. My kids love the music from Steve and Lisa James! (I’ll see if I can get Teach to embed one of their songs for you.) We had a party at our church on Friday night and Steve ran the mike. I’ve never known anyone who can make up a song on the piano while he is talking…until I met Steve, that is.

But even though I could write an entire post on them (and maybe I will!), today I want to tell you about our newest celebrity. Wait! Let me back up a little. Last Sunday I was asked to substitute in the nursery. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the LDS church, the nursery is a little class for 18 months to three-year-olds. That means it’s Curly’s class.

Of course I said yes right away. I love hanging out with the little kids. I can kick off my shoes, sit on the floor, spend time with my little guy just playing, and I even get a snack if I want one. Curly was so excited that I was coming to his class! He practically skipped out of the chapel and down the hall. I was lugging Baby Doll on one arm and trying to keep up as we wove through small groups of people who weren’t in nearly as big of a hurry as we were. The nursery is always staffed with at least two teachers just in case someone needs to find mom in a hurry.

So the other nursery worker’s name was Sarah. She was new to the neighborhood and I had never had the opportunity to talk with her. We chatted about our families and kids as we crawled around on the floor settling disputes and racing Hot Wheels. She mentioned that she had a degree in Music Therapy when I told her that the Dog Walker was autistic. Somewhere I heard that she played the guitar and did some entertaining…

We cleaned up the toys and settled the kids for a snack. There were only six counting Baby Doll, but it was all I could do to keep her sitting upright in a little folding chair. She kept climbing on the table. I was still trying to get her to finish her snack when Sarah herded the older kids across the hall to a tiny classroom for their lesson. I could hear her singing, “If you’re ready for the lesson, find your seat. If you’re ready for the lesson, find your seat…”

Five minutes later they were back and anxious to color. I had just gotten the table wiped down and the leftover treats put away. We spread the crayons on the table and handed each child a picture. Sarah hummed quietly in between compliments on their work. When they had completed their masterpieces, we cleaned up again. Then Sarah asked if the kids wanted to sing a song and she started with “Shake your Sillies Out.” But she got ZERO response. Instead they all wanted to crawl around on the floor and pretend they were puppies until their parents came to pick them up.

Sarah Sample

When we got home, I decided to Google my new friend, Sarah Sample. Turns out she has four CDs to her credit, videos on YouTube, and you can buy her stuff on Amazon! Suddenly my little private concert took on more significance. People pay good money to hear her sing. But I guess that didn’t matter to that bunch of 3-year-olds. They’d rather roll over and play dead!