Sunday, December 07, 2003

LET US PRAY
Church. That place of peace and quiet, of prayer and untold anxiety. If you ask me, there is nothing more heart-stopping than a children's sermon, where all the kids go to the front of the church -- out of arms reach and often beyond the effective range of the maternal death stare. This morning was children's sermon Sunday. Up the steps they went, with TinyTuna leading the charge. She plants herself front and center and turns her back to me, thus rendering the death stare useless. (Note: I am currently working on the "death cough" for such occasions, but it is still under development)

The subject of the sermon was Advent. They talked about the purple color in the church. They talked about how long Advent lasts. They talked about prophets and they talked about what the word "Advent" means. All perfectly acceptable topics, and the children were sitting and listening relatively quietly.

But then it turned to a question and answer session. Whenever this happens, I get really religious really fast. I start speed praying because in these sorts of situations, I don't have the slightest idea what might come out of my child's mouth. It's all well and good if TinyTuna says something cute or "awww" inspiring. But if we get a "Kids Say the Darndest Things" sermon, at the very least I think SheckyTuna should get a cut of the comedic profit.

The question was -- How do you prepare for Advent? Uh oh. I have not prepped TinyTuna on this question. Mostly because I'm so far behind in everything, I haven't really gotten around to Advent quite yet. So all the children start providing their answers. What is TinyTuna going to say?

Dear Lord,
Please, please please, please, please.
I know I'm behind. Really behind.
But please, don't have TinyTuna answer
"We prepare for Advent by eating our
trick-or-treat candy while we finally take
down our Halloween decorations."

Thanks loads
~~GreenTuna


In the end, she did OK. She remembered (with prompting) that she had made an Advent wreath the day before. When asked how many candles she lit on the wreath (the correct answer would have been TWO), she said she didn't remember. That was good enough for me, because we ended up lighting them all just to make sure they all worked ok **Wink Wink**. Actually we lit them all because TinyTuna really, really wanted to. I guess we still need to work on that "waiting" part of Advent.
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