More Maturity Give Me, More Patience In Church

Well, we went to our new ward yesterday. We'd been looking forward to it all week, and had to force ourselves not to get there too early so as not to appear over-eager and needy (which we both were). I knew that Holden, our resident three-year-old, might have some qualms about going to a new Sunbeams class, but I remained cautiously optimistic. When he took his shirt off 15 minutes into sacrament meeting, however, my optimism about his behavior in church began to diminish ever so slightly. Two minutes later, when I had him locked in the women's bathroom as a last ditch effort to make him obey, I wondered if he'd willingly go into the Primary Room. When he fell asleep on my lap while I sat on one of those miniature kids' chairs during opening exercises, I pretty much gave up. Two hours (and a lot of time spent holding the bathroom door closed) later, it was time to go home. We found Mike, blissfully ignorant of my ordeal, making new friends in Elders' Quorum. I had been able to spend about five minutes in Relief Society--just long enough to get the gist of the lesson, titled "No Success Can Compensate for Failure in the Home" and feel guilty about my parenting skills, and the look of twisted rage that I saw on my face in the bathroom mirror just minutes before. Mike also had a very ironic lesson in Elders Quorum: "Why Our Wives are More Patient and Selfless Than We Are." Ha! Not all wives, I'm afraid. Not all...