The wiggles go to church

Here I sit at 8:45pm, with 6 seconds left on the clock in the Husky-Irish game, which, on my DVR, is tied 30-30. Funny, this is the same place I was at 4:30 this afternoon, except I was yelling at the TV and at the girls to get their socks on already, and muttering under my breath about the-things-we-do-for-our-children. I ended up turning the television off a few minutes into overtime, and rushing out the door to get to church. On the way there, I promised the girls we would go to Japanese food afterward.

A few times a year, the kids in pre-school sing at the Saturday evening service, and in an attempt to keep as busy as possible, I decided we would go. Also, it's so cute to see the children standing up front, trying to remember the words to their songs, and making muted arm motions.

Damn. Lost in overtime.

So we arrived with a few minutes to spare, and I wisely chose seats towards the back. At some point early on, I wondered about my sanity. I mean, who takes their three children, four years old and under, to Saturday evening church service, when none of the children are able to sit still for longer than 1.2 minutes, one of them is teething, and two of them find great humor in kicking the wooden pews to produce a fun hollow thud? Luckily, I was not the only one with unruly children, but even one of my friends mentioned later that she could hear us from her seat. Go on, ask me if I got anything out of the service.

Luke decided that tonight would be a good time to start practicing his banzai voice. Just imagine a lot of loud growling. I'm pretty certain we were turning heads, but I was too busy trying to entertain my bouncing boy to notice. After about 20 minutes of bellowing, song and prayer, the kids finally wandered up front to sing. The first thing Kate did when she got situated was to find me in the audience and wave with both hands above her head: "Hi, Mom!" They performed about 5 songs, and I was sad I didn't bring my camera. Claire was especially cute, singing with wide eyes and looking at all the kids next to her to see if she was doing it right.

After they had finished, we went back to our pew and I tried to calm the masses. The girls were pretty good, with only Claire tugging at me every few minutes, asking, "Are we going to Japanese now?" over and over again. It was Luke who ended up causing us to make an early break for it. He would not hold still, insisting on jumping on my bladder, and growling like a Tasmanian devil.

Sushi went surprisingly well. Claire even insisted on tasting my salmon and tuna nigiri, and both girls ate enough tempura to warrant a lollipop at the end. When I was getting the kids into the car, Kate was standing on the sidewalk, hands clasped, staring at the starry sky. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was wishing on a star. She implored me and Claire to join her in singing the song one sings when making wishes. I asked her what she wished for and she smiled and said, "I wished that my Daddy would come home some day." Drama much? He'll be home in 2 weeks.