Stressful Sundays

Okay... if you're looking for an uplifting and edifying post about perfection, maybe you should skip this one.

You're still reading? Don't say I didn't warn you. Sundays are great. They really are. I always look forward to going to church and hearing about our most basic gospel principles and learning ever more about our Savior, Jesus Christ. I enjoy going to Relief Society and hearing uplifting lessons about the most important things in our lives. Sunday school is always a joy and the reiteration of the scripture stories and legendary heroes and villains from years past never fails to disappoint. Sacrament meeting is an amazing opportunity to renew our covenants through partaking in the Sacrament. And yes, I realize that I listed the meetings in reverse order from what most people find "normal" and commonplace. However, this is the order our ward and stake have chosen to schedule them. With the abundance of reasons our sunday church block of meetings provides support, education and spiritual enlightenment, how is it that by Sunday evening, I am ready to pull all my hair out? Why am I ready to put all the kids in bed at 6pm? How can I not be relaxed, refreshed and ready for a new week after a "restful" weekend?

You may not want to know, but I really do need to express myself tonight. I love my family. I love my kids. I really really do. There are so many amazing, great qualities that each one possesses. They bring a joy and light to my life that I could never fully describe. However, they tend to make Sundays the most stressful and exasperating day of the week for me! The ages of my kids is partly to blame. The backwards schedule of our church block is partly to blame. Our awareness of our surroundings and the effects of our family chaos on others is partly to blame. I know it's hard for a child to sit through an entire hour of worship without having some kind of distraction. It's hard for an adult to sit through an entire hour sometimes. Having four little "friends" sitting in the same pew on Sunday doesn't help the cause much either. My lovely children thoroughly enjoy playing with each other most of the time. Sacrament meeting is no different. They also commonly participate in picking on each other, egging on and laughing at each other's bad behavior, and joining in on each other's noise making practices. Again, Sacrament meeting is no different. Having it last on our list of meetings completely messes up the spirit of our block of meetings for me. The first two hours are always nice and enjoyable with many opportunities for edification and feeling the Spirit. Then, we wrap it all up with a circus of noise and distractions for the last hour. We try our best to control our children and teach them the importance of reverence and respect. We like to think that we are instilling good principles and behavior in our children at an early age. We realize the importance of church attendance even when it would be so much easier to skip out on the hardest hour and go home for lunch and naps. But it really doesn't make it any easier to sit through backwards glances from elderly congregation members, the playful distracting from the kids in the row behind us when we've barely gotten control of our own kids' behavior, the Cheerios that almost always tend to find their way all over the bench and floor, and the screaming of one child in reaction to getting a book taken by another. Last Sunday, the couple sitting behind us actually got up and moved to another spot in the middle of the meeting. I mean, come on, people. We're doing the best we know how here! I realize that it is very important to expose our children to our weekly church routine now so they will eventually learn to appreciate the opportunity. I know it's crucial to instill good values in them while they are young. I have a testimony of the gospel, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and our heavenly parents. It's just hard to continually do the right thing when I come away feeling so frustrated and stressed out.

So. Not the most uplifting or happy of posts. But hey... it's been two weeks since my last post, and I really needed an outlet for some of the steam that's been building up today. Here's to a new week to come! And then it starts all over again...

On a brighter note: My friend, Nicole took this awesome picture of our family two weeks ago. We've since gotten it framed and hung it on our wall above our fireplace. Don't you think it just perfectly captures the substance of our family?