Oh, Whatever

This past weekend we went to a meeting with the minister at our church. A bunch of us are looking into starting a group for "young adults" (ages 18-35). Our minister had told Scott that kids would be welcome...so we gladly brought Angelica along for the ride. She loves going to church (though her Sundays are spent in the nursery playing, usually) and we didn't think it would be a big deal.

Upon arriving, my heart sank to see that though there were about 15 members of the congregation who came to the meeting, we were the only ones who brought a child. One two and a half year old in a room of adults trying to have a meeting? Goodness gracious. I was nervous from the get go.

Had I known this would be the situation, I probably would have just sent Scott and kept Angelica at home, but we were already there (and our church is about 35 minutes away from our house so I wasn't about to turn around and go back home) so we sat her down with some food and hoped for the best.

Fortunately, she was fairly well behaved for being in a room where she was expected to be pretty quiet for 2 hours, and when she wasn't, everyone was very understanding and even seemed a bit amused...which was a relief because I don't expect everyone to love kids...especially two year olds who are naturally predisposed to be LOUD. People even chuckled when she screamed "I HAVE TO GO TO THE POTTY" during a quiet moment. (To anyone who was there last night, I am still sorry for subjecting you to that!)

Thankfully there was another mom there (whose kids were at home!) who had the foresight to offer a pen and paper for Angelica to scribble on. I am one of those parents who is always terribly unprepared and forgets to bring toys...and in my defense, I thought this was going to be more of a social thing than a meeting...glad it wasn't since we were very productive!

So we worked out a plan to trade-off for future events in the case that we can't find a sitter, or there isn't childcare arranged at the church for these things (a subject definitely discussed during the meeting) -- so we can alternate, and Scott can go to one, and I can go to the next.

I am also thankful that she waited until we got home to have the epic tantrum of the century!

She did do a lot of running around the table and of course had one temper tantrum...Scott took her outside for a bit to cool off and then we switched and I took her outside for a bit.

While we were outside, after she was calm I told her that she needed to use her inside voice or whisper while we were inside. She looked at me and I said, "Do you understand?" to which she replied:

"WHATever, Mommy!"

"What did you say?"

"WHATever, MOMMY!"

I think the teenage years are going to be hell since apparently we are already in them.