Peevish (My Life Monday)

I can think of lots of things that annoy me: bad grammar, bad drivers, husbands who leave dirty clothes on the floor, kids who beat on each other, parents who bring sick kids to church, little feet pattering towards my bed at 2am, people who are late, the way the NFL and NCAA are in cahoots to have a football game of life or death importance on the air every night from Thursday until Monday, life in general from 4-6pm on weekday afternoons, arriving home from the Sonic drive thru to find mustard and onions on my cheeseburger, and the list goes on.

But my pet peeve, the one that really raises my blood pressure, is one I've already blogged about. Yep-- it's people who expect perfect silence in the chapel during sacrament meeting. Unfortunately, that same member of the bishopric I blogged about several months ago is back on the warpath. I was home with sick kids last Sunday, but apparently he addressed the congregation at length on the importance of a quiet and reverent atmosphere in sacrament meeting.

Ok, yeah, I totally get his point, in theory, but there are four nurseries with fifteen kids each in this ward, and almost of those kids have siblings-- lots of siblings. My friend who gave me the lowdown in the mother's lounge yesterday (I had forgotten how much I love the mother's lounge, btw) said that he said even though he realizes that many of the women in the ward are at church with several little kids and no husband (a huge portion of the men in our congregation are at some stage in medical training, so lots of the women do the church thing by themselves), but that we should really make more of an effort to keep our kids quiet.

I'm so glad I had sick kids last week (never thought I'd say that!) because I think my reaction would have been to either burst into tears or to rush the stand at the end of the meeting and give him a piece of my mind. I'd like to see him wrestle with my brood of four by himself, while I sit on the stand and snicker.

I understand that my kids probably the cause peevish feelings in the people in the ward who are either too far removed from having young kids themselves (this particular bishopric member has three grown kids and an eight-year-old caboose) or who haven't had kids yet. People in our ward always comment on the "energetic spirit of the ward" during testimony meeting. We were in a ward with a bunch of young kids when we were newlyweds and we'd always come home laughing about the "jungle noises" we endured during the sacrament. I get that it's supposed to be quiet and reverent. But I'm doing my best, and I feel like I'm being called out, along with a bunch of women who I love and watch struggle week after week, and told publicly that my best is not good enough. If you think it's hard to feel the spirit while listening to the noise of 150 preschoolers and toddlers, just think of how hard it is to feel the spirit while trying to keep those kids quiet.

I took a four week break from church after Maren was born, and the stress of feeling scrutinized during sacrament meeting is almost enough to make me want to make that break a permanent one. Ironic, because I finally have a big family, and as long as you didn't have to sit behind my wrestling boys, you might think we were an ideal Mormon family.

--originally published 2/5/07