Every Sunday

Every Sunday the alarm goes off at 6 and the marathon begins.

Most Sundays Josh gets Tommy ready for church, which means that he digs out a "new" pair of shoes every 7 days. Apparently the rule at our house is that if Dad's feet don't fit in them, Tommy's feet do. Nevermind the fact that we just inherited these shoes from Tommy's cousin who is 2 years his senior.

We pack snacks and toys in our bag for the children on the pews surrounding ours - because heaven forbid Tommy play with his own toys.

I make sure that there are enough wipes to scrape goldfish paste off the hymnal, the benches, the floor, the face, and the shoes. Travel wipe cases really should come in "church" sizes so I don't have to bring 2 anymore.

I think that church is Tommy's favorite place because he's allowed to flirt from afar. He has at least 6 different women ages 2 months to 26 years flirting back with him across the room. But the second anybody gets close enough to see the whites of his eyes, all bets are off and his stranger-danger screech comes out full force.

My favorite part of church today was when Stella and Tommy were running laps between the Medinas (Stella's family) and us. At some point Tommy lost a shoe (amazing since his toes didn't even pass the ankle-hole) but didn't stop doing his laps. Stella stopped and dutifully came over to pick up Tommy's shoe, carried it over to Junior and stood there staring at him until he put it back on Tommy so the fun could begin again. Meanwhile the speaker is sharing his very powerful (and not at all funny) testimony and Josh and I are sitting on the front row giggling like the 14 year olds we really are on the inside while Junior dresses our child in shoes that nearly touch his nose.

The good news about church is that Tommy's learning how to share. He shoved 4 or 5 goldfish in Stella's mouth before yanking them back out and swallowing them whole. She never even realized he took them back. That's improvement. As my little brother would say "it's all about the delta".

At one point Josh leaned over to me and asked me to remind him why we come to church. I rattled off all the right reasons, but after spending the next hour chasing him through the halls, and the 3rd hour watching Josh chase him through the halls, I have to wonder myself.

After church we headed to Utah county for dinner with my family. Tommy fell asleep on the way there, so we all sat in the car on the street outside my mom's house for 45 minutes waiting for him to wake up. Remember when we used to sit in the car outside the house because we wanted just a few more minutes together before we had to go home? This was not the same as that. Josh fell asleep with his mouth hanging open, Tommy was slumped in a sweaty pile strapped to a car seat and I sat in the front seat reading and listening to old lady music. Our 21-year-old selves were somewhere watching....laughing at us. Our 21-year-old selves are rude.