Bible School...

Bible School is proof positive that I did not have it in me to be a preschool teacher, or the mother of fourteen toddlers. No way. No how.

Joshua had a blast at last night's first Bible School session at our church. We are going on an Amazon Expedition this week, learning about the "truth" that the Bible teaches. Last night we focused on creation and the fact that God did, in fact, create the entire world in only 6 days. There's a song that the kids are learning that I thought would be so far over Joshua's head....you know, since he seems to be at the level of music class for 2 year olds in terms of songs he's learned to date. But if you want a good chuckle, you ought to hear his mastery of the "7 C's of History" after only one night of practice. They are "Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, the Cross and Consummation". Seriously....the two year olds are getting it a lot faster than I would have bet. There are motions (of course there are....every Bible School song has motions, right?) and he's starting to catch on to those as well. I'm sad to tell you that the song has been running through my head since last night and I can't seem to shake it. That's a problem I always had during my own Bible School days as well.

There were probably 100 children between the ages of 2 and 12 at Bible School. I say probably because I really couldn't worry too much about the other 86......the 14 two and three year olds we had last night were more than enough to handle. I believe I counted 7 helpers that were with our group.....and we could have easily used 7 more. Three were high school students who were doing their best, but were clearly unprepared for the "enthusiasm" (read: mischief) that the little ones would display. There was one grandmother, and then Miss Sarah (who I will offer up for sainthood, I swear it) and me along with 2 college aged boys who Joshua absolutely adored all helping with the group. We had a rope for the children to hold on to as they moved from place to place. Mostly they just tangled each other up in it, or used it to pull each other along. Clearly, there was not a lot of daycare experience in the crowd--- no one knew quite what they were to do with the rope. In the course of the two hours, we had one bloody lip, one bee sting, and one complete change of clothes from a mishap while making terrariums. (Honestly, I couldn't make this up if I tried.) At the closing last night, I had two children on my lap, one of whom was falling asleep (not Joshua). I was also holding ice on the arm of the little girl who got the bee sting, until she saw her mommy and went into a fit of hysterics about the bee again. Poor little thing.

I came home completely exhausted, sweaty and starving....with a child who was completely wired. He insisted that we stay at Bible School longer and "do more things". We'll be headed back tonight to see what we can come up with on the subject of "corruption". I'll be interested to see how we take that into the minds of two year olds...

Sorry about the lack of pictures from last night's adventures. If you thought I could have seriously handled THAT on top of the rest of the chaos, you have clearly overestimated my skill and ability.