Miss Jane's Sunday School Class

The cockles (wherever they're located) of my heart were radiating with warmth as I watched my gregarious four year old son charming the Senior Citizens planted on surrounding pews and waving to the ushers standing with meager offering plates waiting to be beckoned back to the front. How did I ever deserve to birth such a loving little boy? Could he be any more darling? I am blessed among women. Such thoughts were wafting through my head as the congregation warbled the doxology.

We attend a small country church in our backyard (I cannot lie, it is supremely convenient). On any given Sunday morning, the pews are sparsely dotted with folks who have probably attended there since their youth. A long time ago. Observing as I walk around the halls full of empty Sunday School rooms and bare bulletin boards, it reminds me a little of the scene from the Car's movie, where Lightening McQueen is envisioning with Sally of how Radiator Springs must have been in it's heyday. A place with far more bustle and life streaming throughout it's corridors. I am guessing many of those white haired ladies sitting ahead of me once where shades of brunette and blond, with little heads and fingers fidgeting in the pew next to them, which they tried to preoccupy with the same miniature pencils and offering envelopes provided in their wooden holders. But now their children are all grown and gone. Their eyes light up when our little ones come in and that tips my heart in favor of being there even though it is not a place that brims with other children. In fact, mine were the only ones there today.

At the end of the third hymn, children (only three!) were directed to leave the service for their lesson downstairs. This dear congregation had recently hired a local Bible college student to head up the fledgling children's ministry. Apparently, they hired the right one because my children LOVE him. His name is Tony, but my children call him "Pony" (i'm sure he loves it). However, as he is a college student, he is currently enjoying a Christmas break with his family, probably far from here. Thus, today: no "Pony".

The children bounded downstairs down the corridor to the large basement room where they usually go. A dear elderly lady, Jane, one who you would picture Norman Rockwell painting as a Sunday School teacher, was waiting with a kind smile on her face. The moment I went to leave, the same son I had, not even five minutes before, been blessing the name of the Lord for, turned to me and loudly proclaimed, "NO! Mom, I don't WANT this class! I want another one!".  I cast an apologetic look to sweet Jane and take my sons arm, hunker down and say 'Christopher, dear, you couldn't wait to come to Sunday School...why, last time you had Miss Jane, you loved her! She's a wonderful lady here to teach you fun things! You stay here and I'll be back before you know it!".

"NO!" (lips quivering, arms clenched, forehead furrowed).

I cast a glance at the one who typically reverts into the fetal position when introduced to strangers, my three year old daughter, who has already happily settled into her plastic seat at the table, munching away on Peppridge Farm fish. Miss Jane's got her number.

I have my two year old in my arm, and am trying to come up with a quick solution, while remembering to pull my black shrug over the white shirt with dark gray underthings I mistakenly wore when dressing at lightening speed fifteen minutes before (ah! the true meaning of multi-tasking!). I then tap into something that is way too close to the surface in my mode of parenting: Bribing.  And what's worse?

I don't have the decency anymore to do it in private.

"Christopher,  you stay here with nice Miss Jane, and when I come back I'll give you a piece of gum!".

His head stubbornly shook back and forth at the speed of light.

Miss Jane is waiting in silence, the only sound being my daughter chomping on her orange school of fish.

Ok. Plan C.

"Excuse me, Miss Jane. So sorry...I'm going to have a little chat with him out in the hallway."I grab his forearm and 'lead' (drag would be too strong a word at this point) him out into the cavernous hallway.

We went out and while my voice was low, it came forth with a 'special event' horsepower that made it clear I  meant business. When questioned, his only answer was 'I DON'T want to. I want another class. Pony's Class".

...I threatened to go home and bring his father back.

...To take him home and make him stay in bed the rest of the day.

...to not bring him back again for a long, long time.

(*You may want grab a pencil at this point, note my parenting strategies and go forth and do the exact opposite)

Clearly, I had no control. Other than taking him back in there, and duct taping him to the chair, it was not going to happen. Let me insert here that this was not because I am stickler on Sunday School attendance. I am not. It was that I felt so bad for dear Jane, who was giving up the beloved Communion Sunday to teach an incredibly small number of children. All two of them were mine, and all one of them was publicly declaring he didn't care for her as a teacher.  This did not sit well with me and yet, as I watched my child carrying on, adding a list of offenses to his original one, I felt quite powerless. And incredibly frustrated.

I went back in, extended my deepest apologies to Jane who graciously said she understood and packed back up her Sunday School satchel and headed up to her still-warm spot on the pew.

We all marched out the back door of the red brick building, my three year old saying 'But moooommm, it's Sunday!" while I'm still holding a squirming two year old and pulling (ok, perhaps the 'dragging' word could be accurately inserted here) the once-charming four year old son to the "Chief" at home.

We held court around the kitchen table, with one of the two female jurors enraptured with glee at the fact that she was not the one in the hot seat (a rare occasion as such). Yea indeed, there was a big smile glowing 'neath her Nuk. We asked those two eager jurors to leave and watch Dora (not exactly an equal substitution for Miss Jane's Sunday School lesson) so we could have a conversation about the morning with the son.

It is here that I could try and make up a brilliant stroke of parenting that came at the end of such a pitiful excuse of it exhibited earlier that morning. But that would be fiction. I prefer to write (mostly) fact. We did the best we could, talked with him, listened and discussed the fact that Miss Jane's feelings could have been hurt, and his actions were not very loving and we left him go to think about it all. Nothing more than that, although I am sure we could have done/said something more clever, more life-impacting.

It was just another day in the life of a woman who happens to be a mom who has never been one to a four, three, two and one year olds before. And because I STILL haven't come across the elusive "Parenting Handbook", you won't find a sterling example of motherhood here. You will, however, find a woman who is weary but willing to admit and learn from her mistakes and do better tomorrow.

Thank God for His mercy, grace and wisdom, for surely life, no matter if we wear the motherhood mantle or not, calls for it in even the smallest of incidents!