Weston is 6 weeks old today, so I thought what better time to try to take him to church than now. I couldn't wait to get back to church...watching the Southland Hour on TV just isn't quite the same, although I really did appreciate it during my maternity leave. Since our church has 3 services we didn't even set an alarm and let Weston decide...luckily for us he decided on the "late service" at 11:30. So, we got up, got ready and were able to head out the door with enough time for us to actually get to church on time (not always an easy task coming from a Baptist background...especially since lateness pretty much qualifies you as a family with kids).
If you've never been there, Southland is a pretty big place and the music is a little on the loud side, but we love it! We arrived just as everyone was filtering in and being seated...luckily Rolland found us a spot on the front row of the back risers. He must have been thinking about making graceful exits in case we had a fussy baby...and he was right. We both think it's too soon to put the little guy in the church nursery, so we left him in his car seat next to us. He made it through the opening music, the beginning of the sermon, and then it started...the grunting. Darn it! So, in an effort to not totally distract the people next to and around us, I scooped him out of his car seat and took him for a walk in the hallway (at least I could still watch the sermon on TV out there). As he quieted down I walked back in and held him in my arms for what lasted about 10 minutes until he started to fuss. Unfortunately, no matter how much you try to plan things babies just get hungry when they get hungry. So again, I took him to the atrium and fed him while sitting at a table in our little coffee shop area and tried to watch some more of the service on TV.
My first experience back at church wasn't fantastic, but I do know some of what the sermon was about (Matthew Chapter 5, by the way). Rolland sat through half of the service by himself, and just as things were about to wrap up Weston was done eating and we snuck back in and took our seat. Funny thing...this is just when lots of mommies were sneaking out to go get their children from the nursery. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, but for now I'm just going to have to try to time the feeding a little closer to church time so we can actually enjoy our experience a little more, and keep our baby boy with us. I really want him to grow up and see his parents enjoy worshiping the Lord.
If you'd like to know more about Southland Christian Church you can go to http://www.southlandchristian.org/ or click the Southland icon on my sidebar to check it out and watch sermons online (a good alternative if any other new mommies out there can't make it to church on Sunday morning). The current sermon series is called "There's an App for That". Enjoy!
It took us QUITE a while before both of us parents could sit through the entire sermon! We would try to time it right each time, of course... But then again, Aiden was a very frequent nurser (due to my thin, not-very-fatty milk and other factors), so basically anytime we tried to go somewhere, he would end up needing to nurse. And we also waited quite a while before putting him in the nursery. Glad you all are back and giving it a try. It'll happen in time. Even if it's a while before you can be present for the entire sermon, he's still learning that it's a regular place to be. :)
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