Nursery Woes

I probably mentioned it before, but I really dislike "church shopping." When we moved to our new house last September, I visited 3 churches, picked one of those as my new church, and in January joined the choir at that church. There were times I wasn't convinced I had really found "the" one we should go to; so I decided when the choir was on a break in the summer I'd visit some other churches in the area. Since I dislike church shopping I still ended up going to the church I had been going to several times this summer, and some weekends we were away (at my parent's church in MD, etc.). Including the one I went to today, I've visited 3 other churches in this area this summer. One I immediately ruled out. The second I really, really liked the preaching, and the people were super friendly, but it was a small church (around 100) so there wasn't a choir. I liked the preaching at the one I went to today, and although it's also small, they do have a choir (not in the summer though so I didn't get to hear them yet).

The only problem we experienced today was that Nadia was very, very unhappy in the nursery. She cried when I first dropped her off, and when I went back to check on her 5-10 minutes later she was still screaming. So I took her into the service with me. That worked for awhile, but then she wanted to get down and run around. So I took her back to the nursery and stayed a bit until she was happily playing and then tried to sneak out behind her back. It didn't work. I checked back 10-15 minutes later and a lady had in her in her arms outside the church building, and Nadia was still screaming her head off. The woman said she was willing to keep Nadia outside the rest of the service, but I didn't want her to cry that long so I took her back in church with me. When Nadia was 6 months and younger it was fine to keep her in church with me, and when she gets older it will be fine again, but it's not a good plan when she's 1 year old. I don't really think it was anything about the nursery or the nursery workers but rather today she was for whatever reason really clingy, and of course this nursery and the ladies in it were unfamiliar to her. I plan to visit this church again. Hopefully Nadia will be happier in the nursery the next time.

Yesterday we had a nice visit with my friend, Joyce, and her family on our way to Paul's aunt's house. Joyce used to teach 2nd grade at the school where I was principal. I have many fond memories of things we did together including we both bought our wedding dresses at the same time (same shop) when a bridal store was having a $99 sale (her dress was originally over $700 and mine originally over $500). She got married 1 year before I did. She is exactly 2 days older than me so we always celebrated our birthdays together, and she grew up on Long Island so we made a few trips out there together as my dad has some relatives who live on Long Island. We haven't seen each other as often as we used to since she got married in 2000 and moved to Harrisburg. It was wonderful to be able to introduce her to Nadia yesterday and to see how much her two kids had grown since the last time I had seen them (ages 6 & 8).

Then we went to Aunt Debbie's house. She was very touched that if jellybean is a girl we're naming our baby after her. Uncle Bill said we are having a boy, and evidently every time he's made such a prediction (such as with his own 3 children) he's been correct. I'll find out tomorrow morning if his accurate streak has continued or not. I did the Chinese gender prediction thing before I found out Nadia was a girl, and it predicted girl. This time it says "boy." Of course all these "methods" have a 50% chance of being right. :-) It was nice to see Paul's mom's side of the family as we usually only see them in December or January at Aunt Deb's annual Christmas party. Nadia enjoyed eating her grandma's famous baked beans. I need to get her recipe!