By The Ankles

Yesterday I had to run an errand and go up to our church for something.  I took ALL the kids with me (plus one extra) hoping to give my husband a much-needed break.

We got to the church building and it soon became apparent that Logan was not going to be able to stay there.  A meeting was about to take place that I had no prior knowledge of.  My plans to occupy the children in the cultural hall while our extra child did what she needed to do fell apart.  Mostly because the extra meeting was a baptism, and in order to do a baptism, you have to take at least an hour ahead of time to fill up the baptismal font.  It's like a giant bathtub.  And Logan loves it and is fascinated with it.  When his older sister got baptized, he talked for weeks afterward about "going swimming at church".  So I knew we had to leave.  I had visions of him doing a belly flop into that water and that would just take the cake, would it not?

So I told him it was time to go and he didn't want to.  He immediately crouched down on the floor.  He wouldn't budge.  He almost yanked my arm out of its socket.  Then he laid down on the floor and stared at the ceiling.  I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed his ankles, and gently pulled him out the door.  He said, "I'm scared."  I said, "Yeah, sugar, you should be!"  But we got him home and all was fine.

We often have this difficulty with him at church.  The music is too loud, or there are too many people, or he wants to hole up in the custodial closet and study all the vacuum cleaners.  When we left church today he suddenly said, "I want go back to church."  I was surprised.  So I said, "Okay, but you have to be good."

The first place he went when we got in there was that closet.  I said, "We didn't come back here for you to come in this closet.  If we're going to be here, you have to go to class."

"Class is dead." (When Logan doesn't want to do something, he says it's "dead".)

"Well, it's not dead, and we are going to go home."  I walked down the hall.  By this time I was carrying him.

Desperately he grabbed my face and squeezed my lips together.  I really hate it when he does this.  I look like a fish.

"I want to go to Primary."  Okay.  Primary is our children's Sunday school program.  We walked down the hall to the Primary room.  But he suddenly he said, "I want a drink."

Oddly enough, the Primary room lies in the direction of the custodial closet, and the water fountain is actually beyond that, right next to said closet.  He was leading me closer and closer to the vacuums without asking to go into that closet, since I had already said no.

We're sorry, Mrs. Stogner, but your son is mentally deficient.


Yeah.