They had the flu this past week, yes, that is true. However, by all standards they would have been allowed to go back to SCHOOL today had it been a school day, because they had been over any fevers long enough to make them allowable to go to school. Even with a cough and runny nose, that is not a valid reason to keep a child out of school per say. Fevers, and vomiting/diarrhea keep your kids out of school. Heck, even head lice in and of itself isn't enough to keep your kids out of school for days on end anymore.
However, it was decided (and not up to us apparently) that our kids could not come to church, due to them being sick. Glad we don't have a vehicle at the moment and are relying on the Church van to get to and from Church, because it would have been very embarrassing to actually ARRIVE at Church this morning and be told they couldn't be there. That would have sucked.
Glad we were told this before we left the house, but after I had the kids all dressed and ready to go. That was completely a waste of my time and completely devastating to my children to get dressed up in their Christmas best COMPLETELY and UTTERLY excited for the Christmas program tonight, and then have it yanked out from under them like a rug in those old cartoons.
They've have followed every rule I have had about 'getting better and not spreading germs' to anyone else and following proper hand washing/hand sanitizing, nose blowing, proper coughing procedures (cough into your elbow). They were set. Good to go.
No dice.
Sorry kids.
It was decided they were too big of a health risk to others in church (keep in mind by state guidelines they would have been allowed back IN SCHOOL).
This WOULD have been their first Church Christmas program they would have performed in. Now? It's just another year they were NOT allowed to participate for one reason or another (before it's been because of their age, or we had missed too much church so they weren't prepared, or the children that age weren't participating in the program that year, or they really WERE super sick and COULDN'T be there). As in, they LITERALLY had a high fever or vomiting that day.
I'm a bit miffed to be honest. My kids have little to no exposure to the elderly at church, my children are not dumb. They know to blow their noses and wash their hands and throw away their tissues and use hand sanitizer. They've been down that road during little brothers chemo days. They know how to NOT spread germs.
I too am WELL aware of the risks of the flu to others. Hello. I raised an immune compromised child from the age of 6 months to a year and a half, he's five years old today and guess what? His immune system is STILL not what it ought to be for a child his age. Thank you cancer, we have you to thank for that. So I'm very much conscious of keeping your kids healthy and away from sick people as MUCH as you can. However, I also spent nearly two years of my life feeling like a PRISONER in my own home because I lived in fear of taking my immune compromised child(ren) out into the world where the germs were (not to mention I had a child with seizures on top of it all that an illness would increase his seizure activity).
That was a tough TOUGH time for us.
I remember my twins' first Thanksgiving (which was right between his first chemo and his second chemo). My mother in law came to visit for Thanksgiving, we had TOLD HER not to come if she was sick because our son was immune compromised and it could make him really sick.
She came.
She was sick. With pneumonia, and she had it bad.
We didn't find this out until right before she went home, and she knew full well that she was FULL SICK and should have just stayed home. But she did not.
I was livid.
Fast forward to a month later and two chemo's later (and 1 in patient visit due to a fever spike that could have been from an infection in his body, but thankfully just turned out to be his immune system kicking back in after that last chemo). Anyway, fast forward to the boys' first Christmas.....
We ended up having to take our little cancer warrior to the hospital for another fever spike, on Christmas day. He had pneumonia.
I couldn't go with him to stay at the hospital I was too sick, so my husband went because HE had already gotten over the ickies (thank goodness). So he went with our son, while I stayed home SUPER SUPER SICK with two sick children as well. Miserable time. We didn't go anywhere at all, we just sat there in our sick misery. No company. No phone calls from ANYONE (nope not even our Church) to see if we were ok or needed anything. We managed. We survived. My son's pneumonia went away and he came home on New Years Eve. The rest of us got better too.
We didn't make it to Church much when our children were quite small, because A: Transportation was crap for us at that time, and B: I didn't want to put my son around a bunch of people who MAY or MAY not be sick. Sometimes when you are sick you don't know you are sick yet (like what happened to my daughter LAST Sunday when she randomly spiked a fever in the middle of Church. She didn't go to bed sick, she didn't wake up sick, she woke up grumbly like she always. I didn't expect her to come down sick, but she did (and I totally caught flack for bringing my sick daughter to Church, when she wasn't SICK when we left the house, I am not a mind reader I do not see the future, I did NOT know she was going to get sick in church or I WOULD have stayed home).
I understand no one wants to get sick, I really do. However, my kids were not a danger to anyone this morning. They would have been perfectly FINE going to Church this morning. They weren't sick with Ebola or anything. Their cough? Was from sinus drainage. Their sinus drainage...was clear, just drainage, no green (no infection). They were FINE.
They weren't welcome to come.
They were hurt. I'm hurt. I don't like to see my children hurting.
I feel like my parenting was being questioned. Like we were being judged.
I've lost count of how many times I've sat through a Church service and heard people all around me coughing and blowing their noses. Coughs that are all phlegmy and GROSS, and you KNOW someone is sick. No one asked them to leave...just saying.
It didn't help that this is the ONE and probably ONLY Sunday that I would have ever sent my kids to Church, WITHOUT me. I had a previous engagement this morning that I had to attend to, and the children didn't want to miss Church, they wanted to practice for their Christmas program tonight (which we all would have been attending later this evening as a family). So I had already talked to the Church Pastor and discussed the kids riding the Church van without me or my husband, and sitting in Church without my husband or I. (FYI they are NOT the first children to have come to our church at their age with no parent with them). It's not something I would personally make a habit of but I thought for ONE MORNING it would be ok. ONE MORNING.
I think they just couldn't find a single person that wanted to sit with my kids. I don't have bad kids, by any means. They are 7 and 5. When we go to Church they aren't in the main service area very much. They are well behaved in Sunday School and do as well as any other kid their age during the children's service portion. My sons, twins...love to pester each other (like siblings do), and so you often have to separate them. They also like to pester their sister, and she likes to boss them around, as siblings do. They are now reaching that age where they are aware of what is going on during service, that there is a routine a way of doing things. You bow your head and be quiet during prayers, you stand up and stand still when it is time to sing, and do your best to sing along and you hold your song book this way or look at the projector that way for songs. That there are at certain points in the service, times when it is ok to speak. Like when Pastor says "GOOD MORNING" he expects a nice loud "GOOD MORNING" back from his congregation (kids love that part). When Pastor expects an "amen" you can say "amen!" but otherwise...you use quiet whispery voice and color quietly on your paper and ONLY your paper (not the song book, not the Bible, not your Church pants, not the pew, not the chorus book, not the offering slips). When it is time to go to Children's service, you walk NOT run with the children's service director. You use quiet feet, and quiet voices.
They get that. They are old enough to understand, and do well with it.
They are, however, also children with sensory issues as well. Maybe, one day one of them has on a sweater that suddenly itches them this time (though it didn't last time), or they suddenly feel like their shoes are too tight, or the piano is too loud, the lights too bright, people are singing too loud (or too badly as my daughter calls it). They don't freak out (not anymore), but they do scramble to their 'safe' methods of dealing with over stimulating sensory input. Unfortunately for Circus Son #1 (sensory SEEKER in stressful times) that means he stems a bit, which unfortunately means he pokes, pinches or otherwise torments his brother or sister (which can lead to a squabble, which admittedly CAN be an issue if not dealt with SWIFTLY and sternly). Especially if Mom doesn't move quiet quick enough to get them prepared for whatever sensory over load need, needs to be dealt with. As they get older, these issues are LESS and LESS, thank goodness. We have always avoided PM services because evenings are *NOT* the best time of day for my children. If my sons are not in bed by 8pm on the dot, it gets UGLY. They are not night people. We only attend special PM services like the Christmas program because of their sensory struggles. They are reasons we avoided Church as well. It wasn't a positive experience for them in the past.
Today wasn't a very positive experience for them either.
But it was a LEARNING experience for them (and me as well).
I want to hold a grudge, I WANT to be super super super angry. Right now I AM upset, I AM HURT. (I spent a LOT of time sobbing with my children this morning over this). To watch them have to change out of their Christmas clothes back into PJ's was depressing. Not to mention I worked REALLY hard to get their Christmas clothes together this year, like SUPER hard because quite frankly, Christmas clothes aren't cheap, and our funds were LOW this year. So I worked so so hard to get them adorable clothes for Christmas, and they don't even get to use them. (We just wear jammies all day on Christmas day, because we stay home and lounge about enjoying family time on Christmas day). At least Daddy came to the rescue and kept them occupied and having fun this morning while I had to attend to a project this morning.
However, I don't have the time or energy for grudge holding. Besides, what does it teach my kids? To hold a grudge? I don't want that. I want them to learn the Christian thing to do. Forgive. Which, that is something I struggle with quite often. (Right now I'm struggling with forgiving my mother in law for a LOT of things, struggling to forgive my husband's ex employer, struggling to forgive my church as well, and struggling to forgive my step sister).
So Lord, give me strength to forgive tonight, because I DEFINETELY NEED IT. It's hard, sometimes to admit when our feelings, or our pride is hurt or has been damaged. Tonight I am definitely feeling my damaged pride and damaged feelings. It stinks. No one likes feeling like that. However, feeling angry makes you feel worse.
So in order for me to get past it, I talk about it. I get it out, I pray about it, and I will move on. In time. Hurt and pain don't go away over night, but it's no good to hang on to it either. You learn a lessons, forgive and move on and file it away in lessons learned for next time.
It's been a very long week FULL of disappointment for my kids. Actually the whole last two MONTHS has been full of disappointments for my children, for my family. So I think everything just kind of piled up and hit all at once. One big family, ugly cry fest.
I think back to when I was growing up. I went to a wonderfully small country Church. I loved my Church, I still do love my Church and I miss it with my heart every Sunday. They were all such an enormous part of my life, and I am so thankful for that Church of a dozen adopted grandparents. I was the only young child in my church for a long time. It was nice. I grew up hearing amazing life stories from these AMAZING folks. Some had lead such interesting lives, and I loved hearing about their life. The gentleman, Mr. Rodgers who ran the little small town store with his wife. He had been at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed and the bombs made him lose a majority of his hearing. I loved hearing about the wild and exciting life that his wife and her three sisters had lead as they were young girls (their father had been a magician, and one of the girls had been his helper). I was just absolutely fascinated by the history these people taught me. I LOVED the closeness of our Church. The love I felt when I was growing up in Church was wonderful and I am incredibly blessed to have grown up when and where I did. I ALWAYS felt welcome. Whether I had a cough and runny nose (They made sure I had tissues and cough drops, and a glass of water during service, and I was always welcome to snuggle up next to one of these many adopted grandparents I had in Church!) Whether I was tired/cranky or feeling slightly over stimulated by everything going on, I NEVER EVER felt not wanted there.
 |
| It's not the best picture, but it's a picture of a picture that most likely still sits on the back of the piano at my home Church where I grew up for 17 years of my life. That adorable couple to the left of the picture? That's Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers, I adored them so! I loved all of the people in this photo dearly and they are all HUGE parts of my life growing up. |
I just wanted that same feeling for my children.
That's why I like the church we currently attend. It has much of the same appeal. Most of the time.
I have an IMPOSSIBLY hard time seeing myself at one of the many large churches in our town (which Churches we are NOT poor of in this town!) I just feel lost and alone in bigger Churches. However, I find myself feeling more lost and alone in our current church as well. I'm just not sure where I "fit in" anymore. There is like maybe ONE other lady at our Church that is my age (well two others if you count the pastors wife, but even she is quite a bit older than I am). So I am totally left feeling out of place and inadequate most of the time in Church. No one to identify with. The other kids that come to Church come with their grand parents. I'm the only mom who comes to Church alone with her children (my husband does not attend church, he has many reasons that he does not go). So I always feel pretty eye balled when I walk in with my kids, like they are INSTANTLY judging us the second we walk in, which makes me instantly mentally spazz out (Are my kids being too loud? Are they dressed ok? Are they walking too fast? Are they TOO happy this morning? Are they going to have any sensory issues today? etc etc). Simply because...I don't want to upset anyone. I find myself being way stricter with my kids at church than I am at home (not that I'm not strict on them at home, it just comes out more at Church because my anxiety is instantly up and I don't want my kids to 'mess up' and I feel like if they DO mess up we'll be talked about later and feel even less welcome). When in reality...kids DO mess up, and that's ok! It doesn't mean I'm not parenting them right, it doesn't mean they get to do whatever they want all the time. It means they are HUMAN, and they are CHILDREN and they won't always do every little thing perfectly right that others may want them to do. God loves them regardless, and so do I.
Any Church I've ever been to in my ENTIRE life has always made me feel like children are welcome, wanted, appreciated, NEEDED. I haven't felt that in a long time at my Church. I always thought it was because we just weren't going often enough, we weren't "in" yet so to speak. However, I've been attending that church since like 2004 or 2005 and I *STILL* don't feel "in". I used to get to help with all kinds of things, and I loved it. Now when I offer to help, I get told no thanks. It hurts.
I was so excited for tonight's Christmas program, partly because afterwards they were having a cookie exchange. I was so excited! I LOVE cookie exchanges. I had SIGNED UP (I never sign up for anything anymore because of vibes I draw off of others when I go to things.) I'm so glad I did not get all 14 dozen cookies baked. I would have been completely and utterly crushed if I had 14 dozen cookies sitting here waiting to go to the stupid cookie exchange and then be told we couldn't come to Church. We do not need that many cookies!
It isn't all bad though! There are so many reasons we DO love our Church. I am just going to work hard to not let this one (small in the grand scheme of things), incident ruin my love, or my children's love for church, our church. I just do hope they realize it's hard to grow your Church when you don't let young families feel like they are welcome and like their children are a burden/danger to everyone at your Church.
I found a post on a page I follow on Facebook for kids with Sensory Issues. I love this bulletin that particular church hands out to people with kids. It's brilliant. I have no idea where this Church is located, but it's something that I feel should be adopted by more Churches.
I wish I got more smiles of encouragement at Church.
Mom Circus
