#3 - Must Be a Boy Thing

Burrhouse worries about yet another Monday following all too closely on the heels of a weekend, but more interesting to me was his description of church with the boys yesterday.

It's gotta be a boy thing.

I have two girls at home right now. I will have them at home for a while as they are currently only 7 and 5. They are the primary reason why early retirement is not an option. I'm not complaining, really. Given the choice, I'm glad to have girls for the second half of my parenting career.

My girls have never "encouraged" me to leave church early. Oh, they could get pretty fussy when they were smaller, but we were generally able to contain the fuss without getting too disruptive. Mrs. Woody has had to spend inordinate amounts of time sitting in class with the girls when they were too shy to be on their own. But, even that only lasted a matter of months when we moved to a new ward. As the girls get older and braver, we have time to enjoy our second and third hours without fear of interruption. I'm sure my sister's boys will get there, too.

Still, they are boys.

Fact is, I, too, have been where they are, and I only had one (count 'em, one) boy to deal with. My son was quite a hand full when he was smaller. He's quite a hand full now, too, but in different ways. More on that some other day.

From the time he was old enough to be out of his infant carrier, he was old enough to give me gray hairs during church on Sunday. I could feel my hair turning gray during Sunday School, for instance, where I spent most of my time walking him up and down the halls because he was making just too much noise for whichever class I was attempting to attend. I could also feel my muscles siezing up because I refused to let his feet hit the ground when he was being squirrely.

Then there was that magical moment when we were able to put him in Nursery. They were actually quite sneaky about that one: They called me to be the Nursery Leader, probably because the current Leader knew The Kid was coming and probably had A Little Chat with the Bishop about "burn out" and "apostasy," and the next thing I knew, I was taking charge of approximately 200 small children between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. Or maybe it just seemed like 200. The real number was probably closer to 50. I hate exaggeration.

By the time he "graduated" from the Nursery into regular Primary, I was a free man. No more trips to the restroom to change diapers. No more excuses to leave church early so I could put my migraine to bed. I was able to actually attend classes and feel like I was learning something. Ah, freedom. For a few years, anyway.

Now, as I say, I've returned to relative freedom after getting the girls past the critical early years. They've even reached the point where they can trot off merrily by themselves to Primary after Sacrament without any assistance from Daddy. Of course, Mrs. Woody usually asks me to check just to make sure they've actually reached Primary, but they're batting .1000 so far.

Perhaps that's one reason why Mondays don't bother me anymore. They couldn't possibly have been worse than some Sundays I've had...

...in the past.