Grabbing & Yelling

I was quite apprehensive taking Jackson to the KidsZone this weekend. Our church's childcare program is wonderful! Everyone that volunteers is great to donate their time so that us parents are able to attend the sermons without distraction. I volunteer in the Babies room (Jax's room) once a month.

The past two visits for Jackson were less than impression however. Not by means of the facility, but Jackson himself. The first episode we saw coming. He was teething pretty badly. This ended up to be the only extreme dealing we've have with him cutting teeth. We were half way through the sermon when the number we were given upon dropping him off, flashed on the screen. This indicates that my child needed our attention immediately. So Paul went to get him and played with him in the lobby until the service ended. He had been real fussy and clingy so the volunteers thought it best to let us know.

The second episode was different. We had known ahead of time that this service was going to be revealing a testimony from our Pastor's 16 year old daughter. It was a service about forgiveness. So she made her way up onto the stage, in front of the whole church. How much courage that must have taken for a teenager? She began to tell us that she was sexually abused by a family friend. You could hear a pin drop in that whole auditorium! At this very heart gripping moment... this sweet girl's face disappear from the overhead display screen and my child's number appears! I looked at Paul and said "You have GOT to be kidding me!" Paul again, left to attend to our private fussy intruder while I stayed to hear about how she first struggled, then came to forgive this person that betrayed her trust. It was a hard story to hear, and even harder to watch her father cry as she spoke. A service I will never forget.

Needless to say, I was nervous about dropping my child off again. Was I going to get called out again? Are some of my fears of being a stay at mom coming true? (Stay tuned for that post) Jackson's new phase is grabbing the clothes of other children and yelling in their face. You might think that would be funny, and many parents laugh when they see it. But it isn't funny to correct. It isn't funny to take your child's hand and say "Nice Touches" or "Shh... we talk quietly" when your child doesn't understand what you're teaching him. It isn't funny when the other child gets scared and starts to cry. It isn't funny when the other children don't want to play with your baby because he's "mean" to them.

I warned the volunteers this morning about his new tendency and she seemed to take it pretty well. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised that Jackson did very well today. There was only one other child there, Jackson's exact age. He did have a few spurts of grabbing & yelling, but nothing too dramatic. Would he have been the same if their were more children there?

I do hope this grabbing & yelling phase passes....

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