Ok ladies... get your looks of disbelief ready.... wait for it... I do not take snacks or toys for my kids to church. Every time I tell some one this, usually in the mothers lounge at church, I get looks of disbelief. Then after i explain my reasons i usually get some understanding.
Tim and i decided a while ago that we wouldn't be bringing any more snacks to church. Eddie is old enough not to need them and Grace makes a HUGE mess every time i bring some(or she steals some from whom ever we happen to sit by). As long as i feed her a big lunch before church, she does alright.. I don't want to have to clean up the pew after we are done using it. so then i was just bringing a few 'quiet' toys. With boys though, nothing is a quiet toy for long. After a while that too seemed unnecessary. I was never allowed to bring anything to church with me and i survived. I have let them bring a notebook and colored pencils a couple of times and that worked ok. but then when it is time for them to go to class i end up having to carry them around. Since Grace figured out how to work zippers I haven't even brought my diaper bag in to the church. If i need a diaper i just run out to the car and this has only happened once or twice since i stopped bringing it in. It is really nice to walk into the church carrying only my keys, and i just run to the car before primary to get what i need.
I know there are other people out there who feel the same way other than my mother. I do wonder now that grace is growing up a little if i would enjoy sacrament meeting more if she had something to keep her occupied. It usually ends up being me or tim that she is occupied with but i think that is ok. Also after the first of the year when we meet earlier and not right at nap time i think she will be even better.
3 comments:
I do not think you're crazy. In fact, I'm thinking you're onto something. Snacks are a mess, and I've only been bringing them to keep my kids' mouths busy. Otherwise, the one is a boy (I know what you mean about nothing being a "quiet" toy for very long) and the other one would scream her head off the entire first hour if she didn't have a bag of mini marshmallows preventing her from doing so. I think I'll experiment with the no diaper bag trick and see how I like it. After all, it is just baggage to me, and I can't even carry it while I've got a feisty kid on each arm.
YAY! I'm so glad we're not the only ones. We don't do snacks for a variety of reasons. I'm with you on that. It's super awkward though when your kids are gawking at some other kids' snacks and the parents offer some for your kids. It's usually easier to say yes than to try to explain no. But then you feel like it's teaching your kids to beg. UGH.
As far as toys go, we tried everything when our kids were babies, and they weren't interested in toys anyway, so why lug them around? We got all of 3 seconds out of each item. Now that they're older, Claire does great but Scott, oh Scott. He is SO not Claire. At this age, Claire had already learned to stay in the meeting fairly well. Not Scott! How do you teach him to stay in the meeting when he finds misbehaving more fun? Despite the screaming writhing wreck he is when we trap him on our laps out in the foyer, he is relentless in his irreverence. We want staying in church to be more fun than leaving! We used to not bring him any true toys, but I finally gave in after a semi-accidental General Conference toy bringing. If we take him 2 trains, I can actually hear maybe 15 minutes of the meeting. It's worth it. It frequently gets us at least through the actual sacrament. And now, he screams at us until we get them out. UGH!!! So we're stuck bringing them for now until he's a rational being. So like, never?
Hey Alison,
I no longer bring my kids snacks either, but sometimes they smuggle them in unbeknowst to me. Or they convince their dad to let them while I'm still upstairs getting ready. They eat lunch right beforehand, and nursery kids get snacks anyway, so I think they can survive 1 1/2 hours without some goldfish crackers.
We do do the toys however, because when my kids don't have them, they fight with eachother to keep themselves occupied.
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