Sunday: A Day of Rest???

Sundays are not particularly relaxing for me. The Sgt. goes straight from his shift to the church where he works until 12:30 and then comes home and goes to sleep so as to get up and go back on duty at 11PM Sun.night. What that means for me is that I have to get the 3 kiddos up, fed, dressed and out the door for worship by 8:50. Really I do this every day of the week (although Thur/Fri the Sgt does help somewhat) so it's not too big of a deal, except that after worship, I serve and we don't get home until 1 or so. Lunch is late, naps are always a question mark, and in general I am exhausted by 2 PM! I know that this schedule is primarily the result of choices that we have made, and I don't say this to complain. I have just had to make some other decisions to "make" the rest of the day a Sabbath. I have chosen to ignore the giant dog-hair tumbleweeds rolling by. I look the other way at the mountain of laundry that has some how accumulated since yesterday when I so totally washed every article of clothing in the whole house. I leave dirty dishes in the sink and I will often go grab a sandwich for dinner instead of cooking a meal. I'm not sure that this constitutes honoring the Sabbath, but it works for us for now. Hopefully when circumstances change we can rethink this day. As for our Palm Sunday, it started out with a miracle: lil'man slept until almost 7!!!!! I seriously was beginning to wonder if he was alive - I mean not enough to drag my behind out of bed to check, but I thought about it. EK slept til 7:20 and overall it wasn't too crazy of a morning. Both of the biguns wanted to go to worship with us which we occasionally let them do; however, this morning we walked into a dark, quiet worship center. Apparently, to prepare our hearts for Easter, they wanted to symbolically represent the light/darkness of Christ's life and impending death. Good to know as I try to stake out 4 seats for me, the two kids and the Sgt. Good grief. The scripture readings were meaningful, the music heart stirring, and communion always gets me. BUT, my dear children thought it appropriate to play air guitar and drums with the more upbeat songs and J found inspiration in the quieter music which he interpreted via opera like lip sync. Seriously. the Sgt and I spent the better half of worship firmly squeezing their legs/arms/feet in attempts to keep them still. They really weren't that bad, but I just wasn't in the mood. Fast forward 1 hour. Both kids are over in my hall as the 11 service wraps up. They are in the kitchen area, door closed, playing with J's resurrection eggs - or so I thought. J opens the door and shows me the TOP HALF of my cell phone. The BOTTOM HALF is in my precious daughter's hand - both looking as guilty as Judas. I knew immediately what had happened - she had the phone opened and was pretending to talk to who knows, he wanted it so grabbed for it, each pulled their respective ends and voila! I couldn't talk. I called the Sgt and said he'd better come up with a suitable discipline or else he would have locate his two eldest's grave sites in the backyard. Honestly I hardly care about the phone itself - it was the blatant disrespect for something that didn't even belong to them. UGH - can we say feeling like a failure as a parent. I know they just messed up - but seriously. So they have spent the entire afternoon in bed. They will come out for dinner, and then get right back in bed. They are miserable and I am smiling! Sick? Yes. But too often I feel like their disciplines aren't making an impact. So to know that they are getting this means alot. So I will take that sick satisfactory smile of mine, load them up and drive to get something to eat, cause it's the Sabbath and I'm not cookin':)