by Meredith
It’s been a while, but Leah asked us if anyone had trouble getting things out of worship services with their little one. Leah found herself jumping up to feed Little Bit and unable to enjoy the services herself.
Well, UUs are a bit different and there are multiple mothers who breastfeed openly in the middle of our services and the murmured comments folks make to each other about that is generally “good for her”. I’m also lucky in that we have a “quiet room” where gliders are provided and our babies can make noise & fuss while we can still see into the sanctuary and hear the message and sing along with the hymns. It’s really quite lovely and over the summer I found it was a good place to connect with other mothers with babies about Sweet Pea’s age. So, even if he fussed and I missed the sermon, it worked well for me.
And then school came back in session.
Once school was back in, services were split into early and late service and suddenly the quiet room was over-run with un-supervised tweens (kids too young to be called teens) playing on ipads and the like. There are signs posted that parents with small children should get priority seating, but none of the tweens offered me a seat the first week I found this situation and I didn’t relish the idea of sitting with tweens instead of other parents anyway, so rather than ask for a seat, I headed into the service. Blessedly, Sweet Pea was in a good mood that day and seemed to enjoy the music and fell asleep during meditation. It was actually quite nice, even if 100% of my attention wasn’t on the message.
This past Sunday, the second Sunday I’ve tried to take Sweet Pea since school’s been back in session, I got there early enough to “stake out” a spot in the quiet room. The tweens did eventually show up, but rather than make it less pleasant, one of them became fascinated with Sweet Pea and actually held and entertained Sweet Pea while I was able to pay a little more attention to what was going on in the service. Not at all what I had expected or hoped for out of our trip to Sunday services, but a pleasant surprise.
I imagine that’s typical of everything in parenthood: not what you expect, but pleasantly surprising. At least that’s what I hope. The truth is that I don’t get what I used to out of services when I take Sweet Pea with me, but I think that’s okay, because I’m getting something else… and on the good days, Sweet Pea gets something out of it also- whether he enjoys the music or the tween sitting next to him, he’s getting something he wouldn’t get at home and I really think that what he’s getting is good for him… so long as it doesn’t interrupt our sleep/nap schedule/training (which is a post fo
It’s been a while, but Leah asked us if anyone had trouble getting things out of worship services with their little one. Leah found herself jumping up to feed Little Bit and unable to enjoy the services herself.
Well, UUs are a bit different and there are multiple mothers who breastfeed openly in the middle of our services and the murmured comments folks make to each other about that is generally “good for her”. I’m also lucky in that we have a “quiet room” where gliders are provided and our babies can make noise & fuss while we can still see into the sanctuary and hear the message and sing along with the hymns. It’s really quite lovely and over the summer I found it was a good place to connect with other mothers with babies about Sweet Pea’s age. So, even if he fussed and I missed the sermon, it worked well for me.
And then school came back in session.
Once school was back in, services were split into early and late service and suddenly the quiet room was over-run with un-supervised tweens (kids too young to be called teens) playing on ipads and the like. There are signs posted that parents with small children should get priority seating, but none of the tweens offered me a seat the first week I found this situation and I didn’t relish the idea of sitting with tweens instead of other parents anyway, so rather than ask for a seat, I headed into the service. Blessedly, Sweet Pea was in a good mood that day and seemed to enjoy the music and fell asleep during meditation. It was actually quite nice, even if 100% of my attention wasn’t on the message.
This past Sunday, the second Sunday I’ve tried to take Sweet Pea since school’s been back in session, I got there early enough to “stake out” a spot in the quiet room. The tweens did eventually show up, but rather than make it less pleasant, one of them became fascinated with Sweet Pea and actually held and entertained Sweet Pea while I was able to pay a little more attention to what was going on in the service. Not at all what I had expected or hoped for out of our trip to Sunday services, but a pleasant surprise.
I imagine that’s typical of everything in parenthood: not what you expect, but pleasantly surprising. At least that’s what I hope. The truth is that I don’t get what I used to out of services when I take Sweet Pea with me, but I think that’s okay, because I’m getting something else… and on the good days, Sweet Pea gets something out of it also- whether he enjoys the music or the tween sitting next to him, he’s getting something he wouldn’t get at home and I really think that what he’s getting is good for him… so long as it doesn’t interrupt our sleep/nap schedule/training (which is a post fo