Still seeing beauty - through it all!!

This (Saturday) morning the kids watched a bit of telly while I got everyone dressed and had a shower. My ideal is that they sit at a table and eat in a civilised manner but I learnt very quickly that with no extra pairs of hands, one very small child, and one with relatively significant issues - that pragmatism has to rule over ideals - and that one can be creative in ensuring quality conversation happens regularly without it having to coincide with meals.

As soon as things started getting out of hand (as they generally do with 3 young boys, especially with the eldest really not able to amuse himself easily, which has a knock-on effect on the general equilibrium of the family), I was then able to declare it time to go as if it was really necessary to leave there and then though we would have got away with waiting another half hour had the conditions been such that I thought that the house, my children and my sanity might survive.

We got in the car and went to Messy Church at St Bridget's (not real name), run by friends who have worked hard on making this service an intentionally inclussive one. It works for me, and that's saying something! The crafts were brilliant and I relished in the chance to be indoors and able to stop and breathe and enjoy with them. There is a man (we'll call him Mark) from St Bridget's who comes into our school to do bible story assemblies every half term and he also mans one of the craft tables at this Messy Church. My littlest, let's call him Freddie, gravitates toward men and was very successful today in currying this man's attention. I really appreciated Mark's enthusiastic and proactive, positive interractions with Freddie and also with the other two, especially as I am very aware of their lack of male company.

The format seemed a bit different to usual today, possibly because the leaders have been going through a difficult time due to personal circumstances, or maybe it was just the plan anyway. After an hour of craft my eldest (let's call him Bilbo) started to go crazy because he'd done all the crafts and playing that he was interested in and there wasn't really anything else to take his attention (when we've been before I think the craft time has been peppered with soundbites of circle time rather than it being just at the end before lunch). I was relieved to spot a box of bubbles in the corner and got a tube down for him to play with while we waited for the circle time and thank goodness it did the trick - he was absorbed in bubble blowing which meant he and everyone else, was saved from him spiralling into hyperactive sensory-seeking mode. Then a well-meaning woman spotted him, came over and told him to put them away because it wasn't bubble time yet. This lady had no idea that in that small act she had inadvertently ruined my day and my windscreen would later be smashed as a result (!?!!).

Circle time eventually began what seemed like an age later (maybe 10 minutes...), by which time Bilbo was getting very hard to keep calm as he had been having nothing to do despite my best efforts. Story time was significantly disrupted by him taking everyone else's cushions, making loud outbursts, singing inappropriate words etc. I ended up leaving him and my toddler to Mark and removing his younger-by-two-and-a-half-years-brother (who we'll call Eddie) because they are better apart at times like this. I then had to go back and also remove Freddie for the same reason. Bilbo then managed to focus and listened to the story for a couple of minutes. Bubbles were then thankfully produced and permitted outside despite the rain though mine were the only ones to seize that opportunity (for all it was worth) and I was relieved that the leaders' understandable reluctance to venture out wasn't translated into a blanket refusal to all and to be fair the vicar joined us and I stood under his brollie :)

It was then lunchtime which was positively a nightmare if you'll pardon the oxymoron. Bilbo catapulted food across the wonderfully civilised room - twice. He shouted - *really* loud - a lot - to the point that my good friend who is the leader (and with whom I had chosen to sit because I enjoy his company), though being patient, had to cover his ears... We also had more inappropriate singing, table wobbling, etc. In desperation I told Bilbo if he felt like he needed to run around he could go outside if he wanted - he just couldn't do it round the food etc. So I breathed a sigh of relief when he and Eddie ran out the door to be noisy and let off steam outdoors so I could feed Freddie and eat some food and maybe even (shock horror) have a conversation. About 60 seconds later the genuinely well-meaning lady who had confiscated the bubbles escorted them back in saying she found them out there and was worried they might injure themselves. I was understanding about it and explained I had felt they were disturbing everyone and that they would be better outside than in. She agree'd it was a difficult balance but clearly wasn't going to be swayed.

As a result things went from bad to worse and by the end of the meal I could barely string a sentence together when my parents arrived who we were seeing afterwards. I handed them the younger two so I could fully focus on Bilbo which is the only thing that works when things get to this stage with him. I managed to settle him a bit by taking him to the toilet then he wanted to collect his bun that he'd decorated in the craft time so we went to get it only to discover it was damaged (which was hardly surprising given that he'd built a tower of about 7 Love Hearts on the top of it...). At this moment hyper mode flicked into meltdown but I explained there was nothing we could do. We went out to the car where I hoped the change of scene would distract and redirect his thoughts but he'd gone too far. He was kicking, hitting, shouting, in an all-consuming rage. At his request, and as a desperate measure, I said we could go back in and ask if they had any icing left that we could fix it back together with. It was that genuinely well-meaning woman again who I asked. She said we couldn't have any and my friend the leader who was standing with her had no suggestions to offer as he usually would which I assumed was because he was probably feeling weary with all that has been going on for his family in the last couple of weeks. It felt like there was a lack of empathy for me and Bilbo and that they just didn't think he deserved the icing for the way he was behaving (if anyone needed help over judgement at this point it was him. However, as it turns out, the icing had been thrown away - but I was unaware of that). So the way we left Messy Church today was me taking a beside-himself child out to the car where he had a massive meltdown which included kicking the windscreen (from the inside). This blessed but over-stretched, sleep-deprived single mum now has another thing to add to her to-do list.

Please let me make this clear: I am not in any way complaining about this specific Messy Church or any individuals per se (to the contrary I look forward to this Messy Church for months in advance, not least because I massively appreciate the various sympathies that the leaders of this particular one hold with my situation - they are some of the few people with whom I feel completely at ease regardless of what's going on; plus the male of the two leaders is a truly gifted story-teller and intertwines song into his stories and more which I just love - it's so inviting, and the female is amazingly talented on the craft front as well as in her hospitality and catering - so they make a fantastic team; I frequently hold them up as an exemplary beacon of how to do inclusive Messy Church when talking to other church leaders, one of whom wants to come with me to see them in action next time), I'm just using today's experience to help me articulate a wider frustration I have with most of my church experiences at the moment. In the two minutes-worth of story that Bilbo had managed to engage with he learnt about Pentecost - the birth of The Church - where Judaism became Christianity and therefore accessible to all: "In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us." Colossioans 3:11

Bilbo was worn out after all his emotional energy expenditure and was as baffled by the intensity of his feelings as the rest of us had been, asking why he had reacted in such a way when his brother wasn't really even bothered that his bun had also broken. This was a good chance to reflect and regather with him. (We talked about the fact that we all get affected in different ways by different things etc; I recommend the book The Red Beast which I reminded him of and which informed our conversation). We went on to have a really enjoyable afternoon of one-on-one downtime :) We went to an outdoor production then to Pizza Express where hyper mode hit again but the setting this time was ideal: we were outdoors. His noise disipated easily and he was free to run around as much as he liked as the restaurant opens onto a big open space with water globes and street entertainers. I relaxed and savoured my food as I watched, laughing out loud and revelling in his crazy ways :) Incidentally, Forest Church and Mossy Church are things I'm very interested in at the moment, and I'm on a Messy Church planning team for another church, which is to be outdoors for the next couple of months :)