Helpful Advice

When I sit down, I fall asleep. It's just an inescapable part of who I am. I attribute it to my early morning seminary days when I had to catch a little snooze whenever the opportunity arose. French class was where I first discovered this, um, gift. It was right after lunch and it didn't matter what anti-napping method I used, every single day my cheek would end up in a pile of drool on the cold desktop.

I used to struggle staying awake during church too. In fact there was a day when you could glance at the Crain pew during sacrament meeting and see all eight of us kids sound asleep. Little ones strewn on the floor and across laps and older kids (like me) with heads bobbing and eyes rolling. My mom and dad didn't mind at all, or even notice for that matter, since they were also snoozing.

I'd like to think I inherited my extreme napping skills from my mother, who as you can see here can
fall sound asleep even in a metal folding chair.

As a parent I've done my best to avoid the sacrament meeting napping fest for my family and as a good citizen I try hard to make sure that no one around us could ever fall asleep either. It's just this civic duty I feel towards others.

Usually we just try to make sure that at least one of the kids has to take a potty break somewhere in the middle of sacrament meeting. Two consecutive trips is even better. It breaks up the routine and makes just enough noise to make sure none of the people in the 4 closest pews could possibly stay asleep.

Lately, though we noticed that some people several rows away were still snoozing through our antics so we decided we needed to take our public service to the next level.

Take last week for instance. While digging through the church bag for a crayon Ellie pulls out a tampon, unwraps it, and holds it high over her head and says a little too loudly, "What's this Mommy?" I was so proud of her. I couldn't have planned a better giggle inducer, sleep avoiding gesture myself.

Ever the competitor, Adam, could not be outdone by his younger sister. Today he decided a shriek, a gush of blood dripping on the floor, and a mad dash to the bathroom five minutes into sacrament meeting would do just the trick in making sure that even the Bishop wasn't sleeping today. After taking care of Adam's newly opened gap in his mouth and totally missing Spencer being sustained as a Teacher, an older guy came and slipped us some money (I'm not making this up). At first we thought he was trying to bribe us to change seats and couldn't believe he thought we could be bought for a mere dollar.
Then he informed us that kids who lose teeth during church get "special" money from the tooth fairy and presented us with a bow tie shaped dollar bill to slip under his pillow tonight.

Wow! What luck. Not only did we succeed in our mission to keep the ward awake, but we also made money on the deal. Sweet!

Now we need something really good for next week...any ideas?