A holy terror

Leave it to my youngest child to lay waste to yet another situation I thought I had all figured out. As soon as my firstborn was past that sleep-all-the-way-through-church phase, I decided that though it would be tough, we should try to keep him in church rather than putting him in the nursery or sitting in the "cry room." Sure, each week, Mark or I would have to take him to the lounge to run around a bit, but it always seemed logical to me that a child couldn't learn to behave in church unless he was, you know, in church. Besides, the little chapel reserved for parents at our church, aka the cry room, oddly seems to attract plenty of random adults without children, so I would still feel like my child was bothering someone.

Our philosophy served us fine through our first two kids. We did the whole pack a snack, bring some books thing, and most of the time church went fairly smoothly for us, as much as can be expected with two little boys in tow, anyway.

Then along came Gus. To put it simply, Gus and church do not mix. He is just too much of a frenetic ball of energy to be contained by the confines of church. By the time the first two boys were almost 3, as Gus is now, of course they still would be wiggly and bored (let's face it they're still that way now), but at least they could sit somewhat calmly in one of our laps and look through a book. Not so with Gus. By the time he was about 2, we had quickly abandoned our no-nursery policy - and just as quickly learned that the nursery often doesn't have volunteers, anyway.

Most weeks, we have no choice but to slog through our first chosen method of bringing kids to church (could this be some kind of punishment for my self-righteous proclamations about the right way to do things?). On a good day, Gus makes it through 20 minutes of Mass, and then he'll loudly announce that he'd like to take a walk. Mark and I usually trade off weeks of Gus duty. Yesterday was my turn.

I had forgotten to bring a drink for Gus, so less than five minutes into church, I took him out with the idea of taking him to the water fountain. Instead he ran right to the nursery. Fine, I thought, we'll just stay here and he can play a while. What's the difference, really, anyway? He stayed there a bit, and then got bored of it and decided he'd like to head back to church. He barreled down the hallway, much faster than I could walk, and really it didn't seem appropriate for me to be running through church. He was about to slam right into a door and cause a big commotion when I finally caught up to him. I snatched him up and took him to the lounge, where, in my best try-to-control-my-rage voice, I fruitlessly tried to explain to him I would be holding him for the rest of church. That's not how Gus rolls. He always wins these battles of will. I ended up closely tailing him for the rest of the miserable time. When it was time for Communion, I carried him in, and though the whole thing takes but a minute or two, he whined loudly and tried to wriggle out of my grasp. I encountered Mark, and said, "keys" through gritted teeth. We proceeded directly to the car to wait out the end of church.

We're at an impasse. Taking Gus to church truly makes us unhappy. The unlucky provider of Gus care inevitably winds up grumpy for the next couple hours. It's the opposite of the peaceful experience I want from church. Mark and I have discussed several possibilities, from going to church separately to avoid taking Gus, to simply having one of us stay home with him each week. But while churchgoing with Gus drains me so, I'm stubborn. Having us all go together there is important to me. I still think Gus needs to go and try to learn how to behave in church. So I guess the answer is, there is no answer. We'll just have to keep doing what we're doing and hope that this is one battle of the wills we can win - eventually.