Life By Lindsey Rae

Today in my primary class I was able to get one of the kids to say a prayer who has never, ever done it before. In fact, up until about a month and a half ago, he was still screaming and crying and throwing himself against the door for 45 minutes straight; wanting to go see his parents. So, I feel this is quite an accomplishment. Of course, I helped and I couldn't understand 99.9% of what he said, but the fact that he kind of imitated me amazed me. In fact, I don't know if I've ever even been able to get him to fold his arms before. After all the crying and screaming for so many weeks, It's amazing to me that he is happy in primary all of the sudden. So this is a big step. I guess you have had to be there to really appreciate it, but we're coming far in the Sunbeam class!

Every Sunday when I get home from church I am just so tired. My calling is exhausting. I feel like all I do is chase kids around all morning. (Part of the problem is that it is in the morning....I don't do well with mornings.)
Usually after church you want dinner, but I don't even eat most times. I just have to come home and take a nap.

I just realized that the thing that makes it so hard is not that they are 3...but that they are 3 and that I have to attempt to keep them at least somewhat reverent for such an extended period of time. If we were just playing around it might not be so difficult, but we go to the 3rd hour of classes with the senior primary and I have to admit that if I were 3-years-old, I would probably not have any clue or interest in what is going on in there most of the time either.
And as difficult as it is for the class to sit through it....well, let's just say I guarantee it's at least as hard, if not more so for their teacher who must sit with them in all their difficulty.

I like to say that generally, when you have adult ADD, primary is a good place to be...I enjoy that it keeps my mind active and that I don't have an opportunity to fall asleep like I might if I were in an adult class. (This is especially good for me having excessive daytime sleepiness problems.)
But, hanging out with a bunch of 3-year-olds will wear a person out. (And cause additional excessive daytime sleepiness.)

I've been very neglectful in writing anything here in the past while. I have just been either busy, tired, both...or not feeling like doing anything. So basically, I guess what I have been up to recently is:
- Songwriting
- Painting, both a bathroom with Jerrod and an old cedar chest I acquired a few months back. (more on that disaster later.)
- Practicing some recording with my new at home set up
- Playing with my camera and starting to make some videos
- Thinking a lot about what to do for my Primary class
- Planning lessons and shopping and making things for my Primary class
- Reading
- Researching things I am working on for music, art, primary, etc.
- Hanging out with Jerrod
- Doing a little scrapbooking, here and there...
- Sleeping more than I want to and feeling not so great some days.
- And more or less of the usual...It all sounds pretty usual!

Sometime last year, when Jerrod and I were in our other ward and teaching the 8-year-olds class at church, I remember we walked by a class of smaller kids, who I am now assuming must have been 3 or 4, and they were learning about how Heavenly Father gives us fish. The lesson was called, "I'm thankful for the fish."
At the time, I said to Jerrod, "I want to teach the lesson about the fish. That sounds like a fun class. haha."
Well, I guess I got my wish, because I am now the new teacher of the 3-year-olds in our branch.

Jerrod and I both got asked to do new things at church. Jerrod is now the branch missionary leader. It's going to be a little bit of a big job...mostly because he has to be to 7:30 am meetings on Sunday's, and we are, of course, not morning people. I'm feeling a little bad for him about that. The branch president stressed to him many times that he really feels that this is the most important calling in the branch. They just started this branch a year ago and they haven't seen the growth in our area like they had hoped because of the housing market being as slow as it is. So, we need to work on our missionary work a lot. Which, of course, every branch or ward does, but when a branch is new, we have to work extra hard to strengthen it.

As for me, I went in and sat with my new class this past Sunday and came to find out that they are quite the handful. A bit out of control. Our primary presidency told me that they didn't have the most structured time in nursery...I guess because they didn't always have a consistent teacher or schedule like needed to. (There is a shortage of people when you have a smaller/new branch, I guess.) So, apparently they are not used to having much routine at church.
I understand that they are 3, but I don't think this means that they are allowed to disobey when an adult tells them "no". I will have to see how it goes once we get going. I am hoping that once we get in a schedule and they come to expect that, they will start to calm down some.

This Saturday we had a pizza party with the kids from our church class that we teach. We had been telling them since the beginning of the year that we were going to do this; it was a motivation for them to do their scripture reading assignments. Every week I give out a reading assignment, which is really too easy...usually only a verse or two, and then the next week they are supposed to bring back their assignment and show that they did it. Well, let's just say the easy assignment has proven to be difficult for most, as we usually get less than 50% who do it. Each week they do it, they get a sticker on their chart and after 10 stickers they get a prize. And they are good prizes too. Then on top of the great prizes we said that once enough of them got 10 stickers we'd have a party.
Anyway, when we were asked to teach the class, our Bishop had encouraged us to maybe have some kind of activity with the kids outside of church. He actually suggested we have them over to our house for a party, but that wasn't going to happen...our place is definitely not childproof...and it most definitely would not be possible to have that many kids in here. Somebody would have got hurt...either from doing something like bumping their head on my stained glass table or by Jerrod wringing their necks.
So, we planned a pizza party at the church. We had 6 out of 8 kids who were able to come. All the parents told us that they were really excited beforehand.It went pretty well, all things considering. A little crazy, a lot of running around, but overall, not bad. Jerrod's work cell phone did get a glass of pop kicked on it, but fortunately he had it in a case and so it didn't get anything on it...although at first he thought it got wet and was a little upset. (That would have been the second work cell phone to be destroyed by pop that he's had.)
I also made up a treasure hunt and hid treat bags at the end. They liked that and we liked watching them have to walk from one far side of the building to the other far side many times. (I made sure to hide them as far apart as possible as to extend the length of the game, wear them out and it was entertaining for us to watch. haha.)
Then we also played Jenga, basketball and some of us (not me) ran around half the time.
So, that's one thing accomplished for this year. We have only a couple more months in the ward. Even though we are looking forward to moving, I want to stay in Primary though. I like it because primary is a good place to be if you have ADD. It really helps to stay focused because there is so much going on that you have to take care of all the time: I teach, go to singing time and spend the rest of the time telling kids to be quiet and stop poking each other. So I keep busy.
And also, I really like doing this with Jerrod. We get to stay together the entire 3 hours of church and that's really great. I'm so glad that they are doing the team-teacher thing in primary now. And, I also think that it's really fun that this is Jerrod's first time being in Primary EVER, since he didn't join the church until he was almost 19. It's kind of cool that he is going to primary now for the first time and we are going there together. :) Oh, and this picture of us is at our party...I can't believe I actually got a picture. As you can obviously tell Jerrod just loves to have his picture taken. Doesn't he look thrilled?

I'm realizing that most of the stuff I have been writing about lately has to do with my primary class...I guess that shows where the majority of my social interaction has been coming from.

This week's lesson was on faith. So we talked the scripture in Alma 32 and about faith being like a seed and like a seed if we plant it and nourish it, it will grow. So, I got this wonderful idea to do the thing where the kids get to plant a seed and all that. I remembered that I had these tiny little terracotta pots that I had got somewhere at one time and I could paint those up all nice and then give them seeds to plant in there and they could take it home.
Only problem was the seeds...at least, I thought that was the only problem. I didn't expect there be a big selection of seeds this time of the year, but I thought I might find some left overs of something. I didn't really care what...just wanted to find some seeds. I looked at 3 stores and called around, but had no luck. Even Wal-Mart and Home Depot didn't have any. Finally, I found a few packs of vegetable seeds at a discount store. I ended up getting lettuce seeds because that was all they had that would work.

When I went home, I washed all the pots out and then prepared them by filling in the cracks in the surface, sanding them, and then started to paint. Well, after days of dry, 100+ degree heat, at the moment I started to spray them...and I am not even kidding about this...it started to rain. Not a lot, but enough big drops to mess up that nice wet paint. It was too hot and humid out and I couldn't even get them to dry. So, I had to bring them in and ended up hand painting all them. Everything was working against me. Plus, I have a cold and I felt horrible yesterday, so the last thing I wanted to do was to be running around looking for seeds and trying to fix a messed up paint job.
After those were dry, I painted a quote from a primary song around the rim of the pots: "Faith is like a little seed. If planted, it will grow." Then I used scrapbooking rub-on embellishments to put their names on each one and add little flower decorations on the outside.
This morning I got up and filled them with dirt and boxed them up to take to church.

After we taught them the lesson, Jerrod and I helped everyone plant their seeds in the pots. They all wanted to know what kind of seeds they were. I didn't want to tell them I could only find lettuce seeds, so I kept saying, "Faith seeds." "Yeah, but what kind of seeds are they?" "They're faith seeds!"

One of the girls really liked her little pot a lot and was very excited about the color she got; she was excited to put it in her window. I was happy about that. She is one of the only ones who ever says that she appreciates the stuff I do. I appreciate that. However, I don't know if any of them ever said thank you after all I went through to get those little things done for them! I want them to appreciate it, because I think it's important they should learn to show gratitude. Maybe the next class they are in won't be so fun and then they will start to realize that our class was better than they thought! I try to do fun stuff, because I know that it's hard to sit through church sometimes and I want them to enjoy being there and look forward to being there.

The primary presentation is coming up. They are having quite a few kids do little solos on the songs, which I thought was different. I offered to give a free voice lesson to any kid who is going to do some singing in the presentation. Not that I will be able to do much with a 4 or 6-year-old in one lesson or even two, but I figure it's good for them to get practice and build up their confidence. And, it's something I can help out with that I don't mind doing.

Sunday seemed very stressful. Mostly, because Jerrod had been sick since the previous afternoon and so I had to go to church by myself...which meant I had to teach our class by myself.
This was the first Sunday since May when almost all the kids have been there. We've really only had about half of them during the summer, since everyone is always gone on vacation while school is out.
But today, I think maybe because they were all there and there was so much to talk about after so long, they were very wound up. And of course, being that I was by myself, it was more frustrating to keep them under control. They pretty much drove me crazy.
Usually, I prepare and teach the lesson and Jerrod helps answer questions and keeps them under control. Especially the boys, since they tend to have a harder time sitting still. They all really like him, but he also doesn't let them get away with anything.
After I had asked the kids to pleasestop talking, poking each other, moving around, etc., about 50 times, I finally said, "guys, seriously, you are really not being reverent and I've told you and told you too many times that we are in church and you need to act like it. I can't handle you all being like this all by myself! What would Brother Barrows do if he were here?" and right away one of the little boys who was being most obnoxious said, "he'd kill us!"
So, they are obnoxious, but at least they know it. I guess that's a start.

After I was thinking about the kids, I realized what the problem is: None of them are troublemakers and they are pretty good kids all around, but there is not a shy one in the bunch! So everyone has got to be saying something all the time! Oh well, I guess it could be worse. I know I sure went to Primary with some kids that were worse.

Jerrod is still not feeling well tonight. He is going to stay home from work tomorrow too.

Today we had a baptism for three of the kids in our primary class. Jerrod gave a talk, I sang 2 songs and then I gave a talk...so it was a little bit of a Lindsey and Jerrod show. haha.
It was actually a really good baptism and I really felt the spirit there. It was also a very big baptism...enough people that they had it in the chapel, so it kind of felt a little bit like church. (We figured that meant we were done our duty for speaking in church for awhile!) We also drove the missionaries and then took them out for supper after.
Jerrod spoke on baptism and I talked about the Holy Ghost and told the kids about one experience that I can remember when I listened to the Holy Ghost when I was younger; their age or a little older: I used to like to walk around the farm and down to the dug-out to see if there was anything interesting. One night I noticed a bunch of little flowers that were growing by the water that I hadn't seen before, so the next day I was going to go there to look around again and pick some. I was going to ride my bike, but, when I went to go, I had a feeling that I shouldn't...that I should walk instead. So, I listened to that feeling and decided to walk.
When I got to the dug-out, I saw that there were some baby ducks. As I went to look at them, the mother duck jumped out at me and started to chase me away. She kept chasing me as I ran, all the way back to the barn, almost to my house. That was a pretty far distance for her to keep going after me. It was one determined duck! After, I realized that if I would have taken my bike, I wouldn't have been able to get away fast enough. I would have set it down and then panicked and had to leave it when I was trying to get away from the duck. Also, I wouldn't have been able to ride very easily over the bumpy ground and the hay that was growing. So, later, I felt that the spirit had told me to walk instead. That probably saved me from getting attacked by an angry duck! 'Cause that duck wasn't going to give up!
Anyway, that was an experience I had when I was smaller, but I told the kids that when they get older and have to start making big decisions about things like moving, college or getting married and all that difficult stuff, then they will appreciate even more that they made the choice to to the right things when they were younger so they can have the guidance they need when they really have things to stress about. haha. I really hope that all our kids stay good. It would be disappointing to see one of them go astray.



I kept looking behind me and something like this was what I saw! (except only one angry duck.) It's actually more terrifying than it may appear.

The funniest thing happened to me at church last Sunday.
First of all, I was extra tired because even though we go to church at 1:00 pm, that morning I first went up to Gallatin, near where I used to go to school, and sang a solo at a Presbyterian church. (I did Bach's "My Heart Ever Faithful" and also sang as a guest with their choir).
Anyway, we went back to Nashville and went to our church after that and after sacrament meeting I was rushing, as usual, to get stuff together for the class of 8-year-old's we teach. Well, when I was doing that, this little 5-year-old kid, who I had never seen or talked to before, stopped me and said, "I saw you singing up there today," (we had a choir number in sacrament meeting). I was surprised because I had no clue who this kid was and thought it was strange that he picked me out of the entire choir to notice. "Really?" I said. "Yep, and I think you are a good singer," he says. Well, ok, then. So, he starts saying, "are you going to stay here with me?" I said, "No, I have to teach the older kids and you are in junior primary." And for whatever reason, he was disappointed about this.
So, later on, it just happened that we had to join the younger kids for a practice for some songs they are singing for father's day. Well, when that boy saw me he was just so excited, "YOU CAME BACK!" he said! And grabbed my hand and said I HAD to come sit by him. He talked my ear off the whole time we were practicing and then I found out his name was the same as my husband's, which made him run out in the hall because he HAD to meet Jerrod then too! As we are sitting there he says, "I just want to be with you every day!" It was so funny. I said, "why do you like me so much?" He says, "I don't know, I just love you, I just want to see you every day!" I couldn't stop laughing. I can't believe how brave some kids are. I would have never have gone up to some random person at church and done that sort of thing. Anyway, as he's leaving primary later, he says, "bye! See you tomorrow!" Well, tomorrow is Monday, so most likely not, but I didn't say that. Really quite funny and kept me entertained through a lot of church, which was good so at least could stay awake, since I didn't get to sleep in!