Payton

A few weeks ago we had a speaker come to the church who had cerebral palsey. It was on a Monday night so we had to stay at the school all and then for church. My kids were exhausted and they did not offer nursery that night for kids 3 and over. This meant that my kids had to stay in church with me. Usually that is not so bad. Jordan and Camryn are old enough that they can handle being in church as long as they have something to draw, color, or read. Payton on the other hand has an attention span of about 5 minutes tops and that is only if you are very interesting! Needless to say this was a disaster waiting to happen.

The preacher spoke for two hours and my kids were great but during the invitation Payton got restless and started to be silly. All the sudden something struck her funny and she started laughing uncontrollably. I knew she wouldn't be able to stop so I grabbed my stuff and quickly ran out the back door with her. On my way out I hear the preacher start talking about how the devil uses young children to distract people and according to my brother he went on for a while about it. I was pretty aggravated to say the least!

I mean seriously I can say my child acts like the devil, but someone who doesn't know her better not start!

Well, I had to think twice about getting so angry last night.

Payton had wet her pants at after school care, and we did not have any extra clothes. My mom had brought dinner to the church since it was Wednesday night and we usually just stay for church, so we decided to go ahead and eat and then I would take her home.

After we ate the choir director asked me if I would stay and play the piano before we left so I agreed.

I grabbed Payton and took her into the auditorium with me and noticed that she had found a black marker and drawn smiley faces all over her legs.

She looked ridiculous.

I just laughed and set her down in the pew where my parents always sit and told her to be still until they got there.

Unfortunately they did not ever come in.

I started playing the piano and the next thing I knew she was up on the platform with me banging on the piano while the congregation was singing.

I tried to get her to stop and go sit back down but she is very strong willed and just kept on.

Then she disappeared, I hoped it was because she had gone to sit with someone, but soon found out otherwise.

The school secretary had given her a stuffed animal duck that quacked "AFLAC" when you squeeze it. Apparantly she had gone down and gotten it and then come back up to the platform squeezing it and showing it to everyone in the audience. She then got tired of that and gave it to the song director who could barely keep the song going.

She returned to play the piano a little more and then went up into the choir loft for the rest of the song service.

As soon as it was over I grabbed her and left not totally realizing how much she had done. We walked outside and the music director and a couple of other people were out there laughing and talking about everything she had done.

I was apologizing over and over again and they were really nice and said, it's not big deal she was really funny!

What am I going to do with her?