Girl Church and Tantrums

Tonight I went to Enrichment Night at church, which basically means the women get together and hang out and get enriched. Tonight we had a "picnic" and each lady brought a salad topping that began with her name. So we ate salad with a variety of toppings. There were pine nuts, carrots, pineapple, hard boiled eggs, kidney beans, tomatoes, cheese, broccoli, and more. I brought mushrooms, but while I was in line I suddenly thought of Mandarin oranges. That would've been so much better. The meal ended with Costco cheesecake. Delicious!

After we ate, each lady shared three things from her purse that described her. We knew about the purse thing ahead of time. The three things I brought were: 1) my camera because I never go anywhere without it and I love to blog and Facebook, 2) an ABBA CD with my favorite ABBA songs and a Clorox bleach pen because I love to listen to ABBA on Thursday afternoons while folding laundry with my kids, and 3) a piece of fresh ginger root because I love Asian cuisine, especially when it has fresh ginger. So basically we were enriched tonight by getting to know each other and eating fresh good food.

The younger kids always get a little confused as to why Mommy goes to church by herself on a random week day. I just tell them it's girl church and they get to go when they are 18 (the girls). They are fine with it. It means a fun night with Daddy. Tonight they watched 2 episodes of Doctor Who. The other evening Sarah asked my husband, "Daddy, why do boys go to scouts and girls get to have fun?" She has that right!

This morning Wendy threw a tantrum. The girl is going through some terrible four's. She was throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her watch TV. I know. I'm a horrible mother. She shouted and shouted, "I WANT TO WATCH TV!" Finally I slung her over my shoulder carried her upstairs to her bedroom and plopped her on the bed and told her she could come down when she stopped crying and got dressed. I don't remember how long it took, but she finally came downstairs calm. I'll admit I had forgotten about her. She asked me nicely to help her get dressed. I did.

Later this afternoon, she recapped the moment and said, "Mommy, I cried a lot today. I wanted to watch TV."

I said, "You sure did. It was naughty to cry like that."

She agreed and then mildly reenacted the tantrum to demonstrate what she looked like. I think she recognized the absurdity of her unreasonableness in a 4 year old sort of way. Then she said, "Mommy, Jesus loves us."

I said, "Yes he does."

She said, "I love Jesus."

I said, "I love him too. Come here." Then she crawled onto the bed where I was laying and gave me a hug. Then I said, "Don't cry like that again. OK?"

"OK."