Early Sunday mornings.

Our church begins at nine.

This morning, all of us sitting in the pew and ready for church to begin, Troy leans over and jokes that he didn't recognize this part of the service.

Since we're perpetually filing in during the first song.

This was a rare Sunday we had the whole family in attendance. I've decided now that taking one or two of the kids at a time makes so much more sense. Sometimes that way, I can actually hear.

As can the people around us.

At one point this morning, I was nursing a tired Max for the second time during the service (because it falls directly on his first naptime), looking around at the busy little bodies surrounding me.

Thane was beginning to bounce from boredom, and as I reminded him to sit still and try to listen, I tried to remind myself as well that as a little girl I too only heard the Charlie Brown teacher's 'Woh wah woh wah' when I looked at the priest.

When he did stop to listen, he caught a line about God being the living bread. This turned into a whispered comedy act of Thane exclaiming, "Agh! God is a piece of living bread!", waving his arms, T-Rex style from his elbows at his sides, like I suppose a life-sized living piece of bread would. "God's like the gingerbread man!", he explained as I attempted to bite my lip and not laugh at his humor and instead give him the Mommy stare into submission.

On my right Seth, with his blankie on his head, was wearing his crocs on his bent knees and making them talk to each other.

At one point Claire was flipping through the songbook, with each page turned her little fist would go up to her mouth as she cleared her throat pretentiously, and she would begin to sing deep and exaggerated, her finger following the music on the page.

The whole thing reminded me very much of this Mr. Bean clip.