Thursday, June 11, 2009

VBS

None of our churches in our tri-parish have VBS. Ram has had a very busy week so he only helped with VBS the first night at an LCMS church 15 miles away. This church is where most of our members go to VBS. I chose to take the Lambs to a LCMS church 7 miles away this year. They are doing the CPH GADGET program this year. I knew I was in trouble when we walked into church and Lamb 1 was afraid of the inflatable robot. I'm still hobbling around on my sore foot (although I am wearing tennis shoes now and no crutches any more). Lamb 3 just wants to run and not stay any where. He screams when you don't let him run. I asked for Lamb 1 and 2 to be in the same class. Lamb 2 cried a little the first night, cried more the second night, and refused to go to any activity with his class the third night. Picture me hobbling around, trying to chase Lamb 3, trying to calm Lamb 1 down from being afraid of everything new, and trying to convince Lamb 2 to attend class without crying. By the third night, I told Lamb 2 he could either go to class or sit on a chair, but he wasn't allowed to play in the nursery with Lamb 3. He chose to sit on a chair. He sat very nicely until I realized he had found a pencil and colored the wall.
I only expected them to attend the story time without me and figured it would be fine to take Lamb 3 with me to snacks, art, music, and games. The snacks are tied into the program and they are cute, but not much food for my boys. So they either eat them fast and then want to run around without anything to do, or they are the only ones that actually eat the snacks so they take forever to eat them. They complain they are hungry the rest of the night too. They do ok at art, but the projects are too hard for them and they need lots of help. I try to help both of them while I'm holding Lamb 3. Lamb 2 ate some colored sand during art on the third night. The music is way too hard for them, I wish they would have simple refrains from hymns. So they keep getting out of their seats and running around and don't sing during music. I spend the entire music time chasing one of them and trying to get them to participate. And out of 3 nights of games, they only enjoyed and participated one night. The other two nights, they ran around the basement but didn't participate. We try to get the Lambs to bed at 8pm and we don't even get home from VBS until 9pm and then we have to do the bedtime routine.
Ram had a funeral visitation tonight after a very long day yesterday driving to the Twin Cities (4 hours one way) visiting someone in the hospital. I was worn out from being a single parent yesterday and their bad behavior at VBS. So we decided to skip VBS tonight. Lamb 1 complained for a little bit this afternoon, but never spoke of it again tonight. Lamb 2 didn't say anything. We'll try again tomorrow night as it is the last night.
I think Lamb 2 is too young for VBS. Lamb 1 would have a fit if he had to go without Lamb 2. Hopefully next year will go better.

1 comment:

Esther said...

From the sounds of it, I think you made the right decision. Ethan didn't do well his first couple of years either, and Zachie cried the first few days last year. And I'm sure if you asked our husbands, they wouldn't mind if the churches skipped VBS altogether! ;-)