Church update

Last week I was whining about Baby Daughter's church behavior. It was nice to hear that I am not the only one who struggles with this.

Last Thursday, I got a call from the young families priest from our church, Father Rob, he wanted to discuss the incident from the previous Sunday. He was under the impression that we did not plan to use the nursery anymore until she was no longer biting or scratching other kids, I explained to him that the nursery director and I had discussed only having her in the nursery during the Sunday school hour, when she has not had a problem. He feels that for her to be in the nursery at all she needs one on one supervision and since the nursery staff are not capable of providing that we will need to have someone from our family in the nursery to supervise her. To do this, my 8 & 10 yr olds will take turns skipping their Sunday school class to supervise her and they will bring her to the class I assist in about 10 minutes before it is over so that they can get into their choir robes for the main church service. They were both enthusiastic about the idea, the 8 yr old did it this week and had no difficulty. I left the 3 yr old in the nursery and took Baby Daughter into church with me. She was quiet and cooperative until about half way through the sermon. I had planned to try to go back in for communion, but she was so tired and cranky that we ended up sitting in the office lobby until church let out.

I also brought up the lack of a cry room or nursing area to Father Rob...he was preparing to leave on a vacation for two weeks, but he had several ideas. Our church has a visitors parlor that is equipped with speakers to be able to hear the service and he thinks there may also be a video link into that room. It is far enough away from the actual sanctuary that nobody would be able to hear a crying baby & it would offer some privacy if the baby needed to be fed. I looked at the room on Sunday, but since he is away, no arrangement had been made to be able to hear the service from there. The room itself has fancy livingroom type furniture & lacy drapes, not overly kid friendly & definitely not baby proofed, but if being there will allow me to at least hear what is going on in the church service I think I can make it work.

I'm optimistic that we will have a workable solution soon.