Nine o'clock Church

You all know I don't love mornings. Our church is set up on a rotating schedule so all of last year we started at 1:00 in the afternoon. In January we changed to the 9:00 schedule. It makes my Sundays a little miserable, but I usually make it work...mostly...

A reenactment...

I set my alarm to go off at 8:10. I know, that's cutting it close, but we are fortunate enough to live about 3 minutes away from our church building so I only have to allow 5 minutes for travel time. I rolled out at 8:10 on the dot and after sending texts to all the older kids, I took a 3-minute shower with Baby Doll. I always have the kids shower on Saturday night so hopefully they are still pretty clean.

I called from my my bedroom door, assigning tasks to each older person. Princess had to get Scout ready, Crafty got Curly, Prima Donna got the diaper bag and toast-making duty. I took care of Baby Doll and me and by 20 minutes to 9:00, we headed down the stairs.

Things were mostly progressing nicely. Curly was still missing his shoes and I had to pull on my boots, but Scout was screaming up a storm. Now this isn't really a surprise to anyone...if there is one person who hates mornings more than me, it's Scout.

A picture? If course Curly wanted in!`

"Who had Scout?" I called above the din. "I did," Princess confessed. "She's ready. I even put on her coat." I peeked in her general direction and saw here bare feet kicking in the air. "Shoes?" I asked. "She has them," Princess remarked, "I guess she kicked them off." I sat down on the pew to put on my boots. My sweetie hollered "Five minutes!" as he headed down the stairs. Kids started pulling on coats and the Dog Walker and Sport left to go save seats. I handed Baby Doll a piece of toast and decided that maybe I'd better escort Scout to the van myself. Her wailing had risen a pitch.

She reached her arms around my neck and sobbed, "Princess put me in this little tiny dress!" I stood her on her feet. It was a size 3T! (She wears a 6.)  I immediately started stripping her down and sent someone for another dress. My sweetie was attempting to scrape the ice from the windshield of the minivan. I pulled a new dress over Scout's head and hurried to button it up. We slipped her shoes back on and headed for the door.

My sweetie had abandoned the minivan idea because the door was frozen shut and now all the kids were climbing into the big van. After we played musical cars and I realized the Dog Walker and Sport were now only about two minutes ahead of us because of his icy car, we finally got everyone loaded.

We did manage to make it into the foyer in time to take the sacrament...barely. Even the best laid plans might need to have a little extra time built in. I guess I'll set the clock for 8:05 next week.