Managing in the Liturgy

Just a quick post because I've been pulling my hair out for quite a while now about having the kids at church... I fully believe they need to be there and will get *something* out of it. But they are both SUCH a handful lately that I've thought about just staying away completely until they are in college.

Well, this past weekend I actually found a little extra time on Saturday night and said the "Akathist to the Mother of God, Nurturer of Children." It's a great little prayer and, lo and behold, this week went much better. Of course, we also did coffee hour this week to celebrate Em's birthday. So it was either extra help from the Mother of God or that bagel I fed them before we went up to the Liturgy (okay, it was likely a lot of one and a little of the other).

The other thing we did differently is sit with a childless couple I know so I had four extra hands helping. I'm going to do that again and we'll see if we have a pattern here (but not for a few weeks since we're going on vacation soon!!).