Two months until nursery (and counting ...)

You know how people like to ask you what the most embarrassing moment of your life has been? Well, this isn't that bad. But it has top honors for this month, anyway.

I'm the Relief Society chorister in my ward, and I usually have Rachel in there with me. Our ward meets during nap time and RS meets at the end, when Rachel is becoming increasingly recalcitrant as she becomes increasingly tired. Last week wasn't too bad. She merely insisted on playing with my credit cards during the meeting and try as I might, she would not let go of them when I took her up with me for the closing song. She waved her arm along with mine, her chubby fist clutching dozens of credit cards (ok, so I don't actually have dozens of credit cards. She had insurance and membership cards too) which I was sure were going to go flying at any moment. (They didn't).

But this week. Oh dear. During sacrament meeting Rachel become obsessed with flipping through the hymn book. A nice quiet activity which I encouraged since it kept her happy. During the opening hymn of Relief Society, though, Rachel became enraged when I wouldn't let her change the page I was on. Those few (thank goodness) people who ever look up during the hymns were treated to a sight of Rachel wrestling with me for the hymn book while I tried to distract her by the few means available to me. The practice hymn went about the same way - the book was only on the right page about half the time and I stumbled along with the words I knew the best I could.

I had the rest of the meeting to scheme for the closing hymn. I brought up two hymn books this time, both turned to the right page, hoping Rachel would only pounce on one of them. That mostly worked, except that she insisted on being held by my left arm and playing with the hymn book on the right, which meant I had to crane my neck to see the words. She quickly lost interest when she realized I was letting her turn the pages, climbed down from my arms, puttered over to where we had been sitting, got her ziplock bag of crackers, puttered back and started squawking at me (which being interpreted meant "please open this bag for me mother"). I leaned down and opened it with one hand while still leading with the other. She was content for the rest of the song.

8 weeks to go ...