Sunday Morning Craziness

Sundays are always interesting around here, because they're the one day a week when I ask all 3 kids to be dressed in decent clothes (instead of pajamas) and ready to go by 9:30 a.m.  Plus, I do it all by myself, because Rob is attending early morning church meetings.

Elijah is always the first up.  He eats his Sunday breakfast (we let the kids have these huge cinnamon rolls that they only get on Sundays.  Best Sunday Morning Solution Ever!), and then gets dressed all by himself, and turns on PBS Kids until it's time to leave for church.  Granted, PBS Kids isn't the best Sunday morning activity, but we're taking small steps, here.

Miciah wakes up late, eats breakfast, and watches TV til the last possible moment, then gets dressed promptly.  As we're walking out the door, she inevitably asks if I can put up her hair.  I tell her no for time reasons, and she brings a comb and hair stuff in the van and does her own hair on the way.  I have no objection to this.

Tank wakes up groggy, refuses to eat breakfast, and then grumbles and grumbles and chooses to get dressed or chooses to not get dressed, whichever he feels like that day.  And I don't fight it.  Better to show up to church with a sliver of Inner Peace than have a well-dressed child, I say. We grab him a bag of Cheerios to eat in the van on the way, and he eats those through the first hour of church.  Also not my preference, but we all survive sacrament meeting, and that's the most important thing, really.

I learned a few weeks back that if I offer Tank candy, he'll get dressed in church clothes and be relatively well behaved throughout church.  That is SO worth a Jolly Rancher.  We often show up to church with Miciah and Elijah all spiffed up and Tank wearing Frankenstein sweats or Superman pajamas.  So, if a Jolly Rancher = dress shirt and tie, I need to buy more Jolly Ranchers!

One of my favorite things about Sundays is the fact that Elijah dresses himself.  He does this every day, of course, so it's not the act of dressing that's so wonderful, it's the clothes he chooses to get dressed IN.  I would like you to try to envision the outfit he picked out this last Sunday:
Darkish blue socks, gray and orange tennis shoes.
Dark green pants.
Light-blue-and-maroon-striped dress shirt.
Beige sweater with 2 bright red stripes, rolled up to his elbows.

The gorgeous contrasting colors.  It was so hideously wonderful.  ...  I like clashing things, but I don't want to doom my children to social awkwardness.  Maybe I should have given Elijah some helpful hints, but he was so happy with the clothes he picked out.  I didn't want to crush his soul!

Elijah walked over to me looking very, very sad.  I asked him what was wrong, and in that pathetic pouty voice, Elijah said, "Tank said my church clothes look funny."
I couldn't laugh, of course.  So I said, "That wasn't very nice of him to say, was it?"
Elijah shook his head.  I thought he would walk away at this point, since I had validated his hurt feelings, but he kept standing there.  I was trying to think of what he needed me to say next, when Elijah gave me a clue.  "I like YOUR church clothes, Mom."
Oh, cute, cute Elijah.  I quickly said, "I like your church clothes, too, Elijah."
Elijah smiled and gave me a really tight hug and then walked away.

Love, love, love Sunday morning craziness.