Does anyone else think the transition from Nursery to Sunbeams is a hard one? I mean, the kids go from mostly playing for 2 hours to being expected to sit still in singing time and then in their class for 2 hours. Talk about a slap in the face welcoming the kids to the real world. Now, I'm not blasting the Primary program, it's just a "sour" transition and quite a sobering wake up call for parents of a 3 year old and for the 3 year old himself. Or maybe we are the only ones going through this but I highly doubt that.
**Now, this "Sour" part is long and if you just want to get to the "Sweet" part, you can skip down to the last paragraph. =) I just had to write this all down for myself.
Eric's first week was a rough one! It was one of those weeks at church that really tests your faith, you know? It's like, why do we even try?! Anyway, Jene or I had to be in Eric's class with him the entire time because he was so out of control. Now, I understand us being in his class could've contributed to his wild behavior but we felt so bad for his substitute teacher!! Eric was so awful that I decided that instead of doing our regular family home evening activities, I was going to focus on repeating the lessons he was taught on Sunday just to make sure he was learning what he was suppose to be learning instead of answering questions with, "Taco" or "Pancakes". :/ So on Monday, we had our family home evening and focused mostly on Eric just sitting on the couch while we talked about the story of Joseph Smith. He was great, like he normally is at home, so why is he different at church?! It's so frustrating to me. So, needless to say,I was nervous for Church the following week but to my surprise, Eric was great. I asked Eric's regular Sunbeam teacher (who used to be his nursery leader so she knows how to handle Eric), if Eric was ok and she kind of looked at me funny like, "why wouldn't he be ok?" I told her about last week and she just said it was because he had a new teacher. Let me just take a moment here to say that I absolutely LOVE Eric's Sunbeam teacher, Kendra. She is the "Child Whisperer"!! She's moving back to Utah in June or July and I am so beyond sad.
Now, I said all that to set up the part that I really wanted to share and write down...So, last Monday night, we sat down to have Family Home Evening on our bed and Eric seemed excited. We had our song and prayer and when it came time for the lesson, I hadn't even said a word when Eric saw that I had his little handouts from Nursery and grabbed them from me and said, "I have a body, like Jesus and Jesus loves me." Jene and I were in awe! I mean, Eric knows who Jesus is and what the temple looks like and things we've talked about before but we were so surprised that he remembered his lesson from Sunbeams and that I didn't even have to say anything. Eric continued to show us his handout and told us that we used to live with Jesus and that we want to go back and see him. This made my heart melt and made me so happy! Then I flipped to the picture of Joseph Smith in the sacred grove and all I said was, "This is Joseph Smith" and Eric said, "He didn't know what church to go." Again, I was shocked that he remembered that because that was from the Sunday he was horrible!! I guess this just goes to show that he is listening even when we don't think he is. I'm so grateful for experiences like this!!
Here is my most recent picture of our sweet Eric, that is growing up too fast!!
