Have you ever wanted to crawl under the pew?

[msjones]

My son threw a paper airplane.

 

During the church service.

 

:eek: :toetap05:

 

I asked him later what he could possibly have been thinking...

 

He wanted to see how far it would fly.

 

He found out (along with many in the congregation) that it would fly up to the 2nd row.

 

Anyone willing to humor me with their story?

[JennC]

I'll do it. We sit in the FRONT row (actually the 3rd row, but 1st one with people in it). All 7 of us. When the baby toy with the teething handle went down in front of the pew in front of us, I was shocked to learn that when it is squeezed (or thrown across the pew) IT HAS MUSIC!! Our church is typically full with 400 or so including those in the balcony with a bird's eye view of what my urchins are up to.

It's all good. Jesus himself said "Let the little children come unto me" :) He probably knew they weren't going to be perfectly behaved.

 

ETA: Now everyone in church just knows that a good day for us is no music boxes get thrown across church. They're very sympathetic - we have the guts to sit up there. AND I think they're secretly happy that the attention is on someone else's kids :)

[msjones]

I'll do it. We sit in the FRONT row (actually the 3rd row, but 1st one with people in it). All 7 of us. When the baby toy with the teething handle went down in front of the pew in front of us, I was shocked to learn that when it is squeezed (or thrown across the pew) IT HAS MUSIC!! Our church is typically full with 400 or so including those in the balcony with a bird's eye view of what my urchins are up to.

It's all good. Jesus himself said "Let the little children come unto me" :) He probably knew they weren't going to be perfectly behaved.

 

ETA: Now everyone in church just knows that a good day for us is no music boxes get thrown across church. They're very sympathetic - we have the guts to sit up there. AND I think they're secretly happy that the attention is on someone else's kids :)

 

:001_smile:Good one. Be sure to write it in a baby book or somewhere! (Or maybe it's one of those things you could never forget...)

[Terabith]

Oh, let's see. There was the day in church when the pastor called the children forward for the children's sermon. We were having a baptism that day, and the pastor was talking about that. Catherine was 2.5, and she said, "That's the baby!" Pastor Mark said, "Yes, and we're going to welcome him into God's family." Catherine, who was sitting next to the pastor and speaking into his mike, then said, "He came from his Mommy's egg and his Daddy's sperm and then he came out his Mommy's v*gina!"

 

There were about 500 people in that service.......

 

And then the following week, during communion, as we were going up there was the pause as the worship band changed songs. Catherine chose that moment to say, "We're going to eat the Body and drink the wine and Jesus will go down our esophagus and then we will POOP OUT JESUS!"

 

We switched to a different service time after that.

[Unicorn.]

:smilielol5: :lol: :lol: :smilielol5:

[msjones]

Oh, let's see. There was the day in church when the pastor called the children forward for the children's sermon. We were having a baptism that day, and the pastor was talking about that. Catherine was 2.5, and she said, "That's the baby!" Pastor Mark said, "Yes, and we're going to welcome him into God's family." Catherine, who was sitting next to the pastor and speaking into his mike, then said, "He came from his Mommy's egg and his Daddy's sperm and then he came out his Mommy's v*gina!"

 

There were about 500 people in that service.......

 

And then the following week, during communion, as we were going up there was the pause as the worship band changed songs. Catherine chose that moment to say, "We're going to eat the Body and drink the wine and Jesus will go down our esophagus and then we will POOP OUT JESUS!"

 

We switched to a different service time after that.

 

WOW. :rofl:

 

I'm pretty sure no one can beat that. She sounds like a fun kid! I'm betting you'll have a lot more stories about her...

[fshinkevich]

:smilielol5: :lol: :lol: :smilielol5:

 

 

:iagree:

[Terabith]

The Flip Flap Body Book promptly got "lost" after the second Sunday.

[hornblower]

Strikes me you're following a fine tradition - didn't Tom Sawyer drop a beetle down the back of a girl's dress in church?

:001_smile:

[Senorita Tuna Fish]

This is a great way to cheer anyone up and it did just that for me.... I have one though:

 

We were at a church play ....and because my church is known through out the city for putting on great productions there were a LOT of people there. This play however was going a bit longer than expected and was really very very dull...very boring and very dry. Even the adults in our pew were getting antsy...Well there was a lull in the dialog and music and my five year old says" GOD!!!!! IS IT OVER YET!!! THIS IS HORRIBLE!!" I shrunk down in my seat and a friend who was sitting with us laughed really loud and called even more attention to us. The sad part is she was only telling the truth.....

[mom4him]

Well, years ago, when my oldest were little(they are now 39 and nearly 41) we were in church and they were not sitting very quietly. I had whispered to my oldest (about 2 1/2 then) that if he couldn't be quiet I was going to take him to the car. He seemed to have selective hearing and chose to not hear this. I stand up, pick him up and precede to carry him out of the church and he starts crying(rather faky) at the top of his lungs, "NO! MOMMY! DON"T BEAT ME! NO! MOMMY! DON"T BEAT ME! NO! MOMMY! DON"T BEAT ME! NO! MOMMY! DON"T BEAT ME!" I had never "beat" him in his life. I am not sure I had ever more than gave him a swat on him bottom but boy I sure felt like it then! The evil looks I got from all those little old ladies was ......... And trust me we did spend the rest of the service in the car.

[TXMomof4]

We also sit just a few rows from the front. Ds is with us through the worship and communion then goes to children's church for the sermon. We were on the final prayer before I could get his wiggly rear out of their and I whispered to him that we'd go to children's church in just a minute. At the top of his sweet little two year old lungs he shouts in the middle of the prayer - WOO HOO!!!!!! The elder leading the prayer stopped and looked, the song leader whipped around, everyone laughed and I almost died. Then I had to get up and walk all. the. way. out. with everyone staring. At least he was happy!

[fivetails]

ds10 has some difficulty understanding when it's okay to express his thoughts and when it isn't, and he also has some troubles with volume control.... one Sunday in the middle of the Pastor leading a prayer, he speak up loudly beside me (through his folded hands and bowed head - he never stopped doing that) and says "THIS PRAYER IS TAKING TOO LONG". :001_huh:

 

I leaned over and went "shhhh" and whispered "that's rude" - because we have been having ongoing discussions about what comments are 'rude' - and he went quiet.. for a few seconds. Then: "THIS PRAYER IS TAKING TOO LONG PLEASE!" :tongue_smilie:

 

Can't fault him for his attempt at making it polite. ;)

[melissel]

:lol::lol::lol: Oh, I am seriously wiping away tears here. These stories are all hilarious, but I think pooping out Jesus might get the trophy. Msjones, these should make you feel much, much better, no?

 

:lol::lol::lol:

[LizzyBee]

At our former church, we were at the Sunday night service. The music minister asked if anyone had anything they wanted to share. My oldest kid says loudly and clearly, "I went pee-pee in the potty." Luckily, the music minister had young kids and was not fazed; dd got a round of applause!

[msjones]

:lol::lol::lol: Oh, I am seriously wiping away tears here. These stories are all hilarious, but I think pooping out Jesus might get the trophy. Msjones, these should make you feel much, much better, no?

 

:lol::lol::lol:

 

Definitely!

 

But, on a more serious note...I do find that these kinds of occasions (when my child does something truly mortifying in public) are good for me and my mom-hood.

 

I'm sorry to say that I went through a phase where I really believed (and it pains me to write this) that my kids were immune to most icky behavior.

 

By now, however, I'm thoroughly convinced that I do NOT have it all figured out. ;)

[HRAAB]

Well, there was the time my dd burped. Not a quiet, little feminine burp. A big old man burp. Actually a whopping loud belch, it was.

 

Another time while we were kneeling, I noticed the man next to me kept giving me odd looks. When I looked back to check on the whereabouts of my dd (same as the belching dd), I found her stretched across the back of the man's legs. Just laying across his legs, looking up, with a daydreamy type look. To make it more embarrassing, the man was an agent for the insurance company I worked for. Although I usually dealt with him on the phone, the following week he came in to speak with me about a quote. I just wanted to hide under my desk.

 

Janet

[Blossom'sGirl]

I cannot believe am sharing this and yes I do respect the Bible but one day at church my oldest shoved his Bible into my hands to carry so I had to grab it and he walked away. This was in our church's foyer and it really pushed a button and before I thought about what I was doing I flung his Bible back at him (about 5' away) right in front of the elder's wife. I was really embarrassed. Just a few weeks ago that same wife passed me at church and casually asked how I was doing and I replied "Well I haven't thrown my Bible at anyone yet." Fortunately she has a good sense of humor.

[Ellie]

Our pastor's wife used to play the piano for church and women's meetings and whatnots. Her dc were trained to sit in the pew, which mostly they did. However, one day one of them had to go potty and she left quietly. BUT she had trouble pulling up her tights and undies, so she just came out of the bathroom into the sanctuary and up the center aisle with tights and undies around her ankles so her mother, who was up on the platform playing the piano, could pull them up for her. She refused the help of every single adult along the way who tried to intercept her, loudly proclaiming that she WANTED HER MOTHER. PW had to stop playing and take care of her dd.

 

:lol::lol::lol:

[Starr]

I love these stories!

[Erica in PA]

I'll do it. We sit in the FRONT row (actually the 3rd row, but 1st one with people in it). All 7 of us. When the baby toy with the teething handle went down in front of the pew in front of us, I was shocked to learn that when it is squeezed (or thrown across the pew) IT HAS MUSIC!! Our church is typically full with 400 or so including those in the balcony with a bird's eye view of what my urchins are up to.

It's all good. Jesus himself said "Let the little children come unto me" :) He probably knew they weren't going to be perfectly behaved.

 

ETA: Now everyone in church just knows that a good day for us is no music boxes get thrown across church. They're very sympathetic - we have the guts to sit up there. AND I think they're secretly happy that the attention is on someone else's kids :)

 

LOL!! As an aside, *why* does no one sit in the first couple pews at church?? I have never understood that. Our family sits right in the front row, because we can pay so much better attention there. When we've had to sit half-way back, or even worse the *overflow section,* I feel like I'm watching a service on tv or something, so removed from the service! My kids aren't perfectly behaved, but they are able to concentrate so much better than they could if they had rows of friends all around them. (Our church has a lot of kids!) I just find it sort of odd that in most churches I've visited, the first two or three rows are completely empty. :confused: I wonder why that became the norm?

[BikeBookBread]

Nothing too horrible to report, but this thread sure has made me smile.

 

My husband tells the story about when he was about 5 or 6 they were attending a small one-building church that was the traditional sanctuary upstairs, fellowship hall, bathrooms, Sunday school rooms downstairs setup. He went downstairs during the service and was singing in the echo-ey bathrooms. Everyone in the service heard him singing away.

 

When I was growing up, we attended a larger church of which the sanctuary was a more contemporary design, with a large balcony that extended over the entire back half of the bottom floor. An acquaintance of mine, "DE", intentionally dropped a hymnal (she was a stinker in those days) from the balcony and hit someone in the head on the main floor below.

 

My friend "LM" and I had a "who can shake the communion cup on our knee the longest without it spilling contest". Obviously it meant A LOT to us in 7th grade. :glare:

 

LM (see communion cup story) and I also slid down the 20 foot dirt and gravel embankment on EASTER MORNING on our bottoms in our Easter finery.

 

Again, LM and I had a let's see out fast we can run our nylons contest while sitting on the church steps one morning. (It was the first time EVER wearing nylons for both of us -- another Easter morning -- remember when wearing nylons was a really big deal? I got to get my OWN L'eggs in those cool little eggs that you couldn't re-use because they would RUN your nylons if you snagged them on them!)

 

These are the stories you don't tell your kids until they are older.

[Terabith]

Oh yeah, we usually sit in the front row. They pay better attention and behave better. Although our behavior still leaves a lot to be desired. Sigh. They wiggle and play in the pew and haven't mastered the art of being quiet. And there aren't usually that many people right around us.

[Rhonda in TX]

She was about 3 years old and would not settle down. I took her out so that we could really talk about her behavior. As we left the auditorium, she started screaming, "Don't spank me! Don't spank me!" I was mortified!!

[fivetails]

LOL!! As an aside, *why* does no one sit in the first couple pews at church?? I have never understood that.

 

we usually sit right up front ~ I like being able to see the features on the faces of those talking:) & from the back they're much more of a blur.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Gosh, these stories are hysterical! When my oldest was about 3 (you know, the terrible threes) he had an absolute fit when the priest did not give him communion, too. He laid down right there and had a doosey of tantrum, screaming "I WANT JESUS, TOO". From then on, we kept a supply of round crackers and would give him one on right as we were coming back from communion.

 

Another time, my 2nd child (the sensory kid who had trouble just being in church) slipped and hit his head on the pew. It was so loud, that there was an audible gasp from everyone else in church. Then he started with the silent, mouth open prelude to the loudest scream you have ever heard. I couldn't decide if I should take him out and leave a trail of wailing or try to settle him right there in the pew (where he would have settled much faster.) I had about 10 parents come up to me after mass to see how he was. This is also the child who was always adjusting his underwear. Well, you know what happens when little boys do that. During a quiet part of the mass, he loudly announced that is p*nis was sticking out. Yeah, we sit in the front and our church is a semi-circle so everyone can see us:).

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Well, there was the time when a 3yo of mine was "digging for gold" and announced during a prayer that he had the biggest booger ever.

 

Then there was the time another 3yo of mine belched loudly during communion.

 

Then there was the time we had to have a congregational vote on a building addition and my 8yo son was the only one who raised his hand when the elder asked for nay votes.

 

Of course I was the only one mortally embarrassed.

[5knights3maidens]

Our 2nd son (he was little), threw up all over a pew during the Christmas Eve service.

Our 3rd son (he was little), crawled up to the front and laid down on the step while the pastor was preaching.

[Renthead Mommy]

On christmas eve we were sitting with friends. Their two daughters, maybe 4th and 6th grade were in the pew ahead of us and over a little. Everyone had just gotten their candle lit. It was quiet, the church was darkened and pretty much only lit by the candles everyone had. Suddenly our friend was diving over the pew in front of us.

 

One sister had accidentally lit the program sticking out of her hymnal her sister was holding on fire!

 

No damage or anything, but everyone was surprised Bill (the dad) could leap a pew that quickly! LOL!

[Jean in Newcastle]

We knew a pastor's family where the girls were named Faith, Hope and Charity. If they were acting up in church, the pastor would say "Now I have FAITH that . . . ." or " I HOPE that. . . " The name was always said a bit louder than the rest of the sentence. Charity was a bit harder to fit into a sentence without it being obvious.

[LizzyBee]

When we moved to NC and found a church, my middle dd, age 3 at the time, was taken with the minister of music's long curly hair. She kept saying she wanted to marry him when she grew up, and I kept explaining that he was already married and had kids.

 

The following Easter, the drama team and choir put on a play. At the beginning. Michael came out on stage to welcome everyone and introduce the play. As he left the stage, the lights were out and it was very quiet. My kid says, "That's the one I wanted to marry." :lol: The dean of students at the seminary my dh was attending was sitting right in front of us and he turned around and looked at dh and dd. People all around us were giggling quietly.

[AuntieM]

In our family the tradition is for boys to get a pocketknife for their 8th birthday. They get a good how-to lesson and are taught to use the knife properly and responsibly.

 

My oldest son brought his to church the first Sunday after his 8th birthday. Between Sunday school and service hour he showed it to his friends. After singing time, while announcements were being made, his friend asked to hold it. Friend proceeds to slice his finger.

 

Unfortunately, he was wearing a white dress shirt.

 

Because he and his brother were scheduled to play a piano duet at offertory time. :glare:

 

We eventually had a good laugh (friend's parents were pretty cool) and were seriously thankful that (1) no one got seriously hurt and (2) that it was Sunday School and not public school, because if it were the latter we'd be taking ds home from school via the police station.

 

Another time I was listening to the pre-sermon announcements and I felt some movement under my feet. I looked down to see my best friend's three year old army-crawling under the pews. He had come from two rows behind me and was aiming for two rows ahead of me, where his older brother was sitting with my son. He proceeded to crawl under the pastor's feet in the row ahead of me.The pastor looked down, then looked back at me, and we both looked back at my friend... and it took all we had to not all totally burst out laughing. Turns out my friend's child was a row gone under before she realized what he was doing, and she just decided to hold her breath and see if he made it unnoticed (rather than make an outburst of it and disrupt the service). Pastor had a similar-age, similar-temperament son and was very understanding. The kid definitely picked the right grown-ups to crawl under!

Edited August 29, 2009 by AuntieM

[WishboneDawn]

Christmas Eve, a couple of years ago my daughter thought our minister's homilie was so good it deserved applause. Last Christmas some of the children were given figures of the nativity and as our other minister read the about Christ's birth she signaled the kids and they were to bring the figures up but she somehow managed to forget my daughter and baby Jesus never got into the manger.

 

That pretty mild stuff though.

 

My husband is agnostic and choose a church service to inform his family of it when he was four when, as his father rose to sing, he bit him in the behind. After screaming my FIL left the church with DH and was so embarrassed they never returned. :)

[tmulcahy]

[quote

I asked him later what he could possibly have been thinking...

 

He wanted to see how far it would fly.

 

LOL!!! :lol:

What else would he have been thinking.:D

[Meriwether]

Once my brother accidentally shot off a cap gun in church.

 

 

He was in high school.

[AndyJoy]

My pastor's oldest son married for the first time at 45 to a widow with 4 kids. She got pregnant on their honeymoon with twin girls, so he became instant dad to 6! When the twins were 2 and newly potty trained, she went away for the weekend on a ladies' retreat. That Sunday, the 12-year-old son announced loudly as we were coming into the service, "My little sisters aren't wearing any underwear because my dad couldn't find it!" At least they were wearing tights, because he then proceeded to flip up their skirts to show!

[Carol in Cal.]

DD was really a bit young to be a flower girl, at barely 3 years old.

 

I sat in the front row so that she would actually walk up the aisle toward me, and kept my fingers crossed. She was so pretty, dressed in a perfect, fancy little rose colored dress, with her hair up, and carrying a dainty little basket of flower petals.

 

The aisle was really long and slightly curved. I noticed at one point that there was muffled laughter from the middle of the aisle, back where DD and the ringbearer were walking. Later I heard what happened.

 

The ringbearer, all of 4, considered himself in charge. This was, however, not my DD's view of the situation. He had taken her arm and was walking up the aisle, and then he started bugging her to drop some flowers. She did not do so. After several remonstartions, she yanked her arm out of his and, I'm told, hollered, "I don't HAVE to throw flowers if I don't WANT to. P (the bride) SAID so! I GET TO PICK!" That established, she calmly took his arm back and proceeded on up the aisle.

[CalicoKat]

Oh, let's see. There was the day in church when the pastor called the children forward for the children's sermon. We were having a baptism that day, and the pastor was talking about that. Catherine was 2.5, and she said, "That's the baby!" Pastor Mark said, "Yes, and we're going to welcome him into God's family." Catherine, who was sitting next to the pastor and speaking into his mike, then said, "He came from his Mommy's egg and his Daddy's sperm and then he came out his Mommy's v*gina!"

 

There were about 500 people in that service.......

 

And then the following week, during communion, as we were going up there was the pause as the worship band changed songs. Catherine chose that moment to say, "We're going to eat the Body and drink the wine and Jesus will go down our esophagus and then we will POOP OUT JESUS!"

 

We switched to a different service time after that.

:svengo::svengo:OH MY! ROFLOL!!!!!!!!

[MomLovesClassics]

This happened during Easter Sunday when I was 3. I was very proud of this little beaded purse that my grandmother gave me. Well, my brother and I got the idea to go up and stand beside the preacher. I went first, and told everyone how I had a beautiful purse and was so proud to have it. My brother went to the other side of the preacher and was talking too. We were not really that loud because the preacher never stopped talking. My grandma brought me to my seat, and spanked me in front of everyone right there in the church.

[Halftime Hope]

dd was nearly three, and the smallest little person on stage, and, as she spoke as clearly as any adult, she had a real part. She had worked and worked to make sure she had it perfectly memorized.

 

On the big night she stood up on stage forever, very well behaved and without fidgeting, until her time came. Nothing. Children's choir director looks at her and makes a prompting motion. Dd turns to where we are sitting and in a stage whisper fully picked up by the overhead mikes, asks, in the sweetest little piping voice, "Shall I say it now, Mommy?" We nod fervently, and she takes a big breath. Out comes another, "Shall I say it now, Mommy?" (More obvious nodding this time and smiling encouragement.)

 

.

.

.

 

She never got beyond, "Shall I say it now, Mommy?" so the pageant went on without the pronouncement to the shepherds, but, bless her, she was a proud as punch of her part in the play: she went and told the pronouncement to the shepherds and the stuffed sheep who were sitting on a bale of hay waiting for the photographer to take their picture afterward.

 

:lol:

Edited August 29, 2009 by Valerie(TX)

[s.z.ichigo]

When I was a kid we went, for a while, to a super-small church. One room, a rec room, and a pre-school. The kids (under a dozen) went into the rec room for Sunday school. My brother and I were pretty rebellious and getting far too cool to be in Sunday School with all these little kids.

I know I once dared my little brother to pull the chair out from under a squeaky-clean goode-goodie girl that we both couldn't stand as she sat down.

 

Fast forward to my brother's wedding this summer. My eight-year-old was the ring bearer and, after being told to walk slowly up the aisle, she proceeded to walk soooooooooo sloooowwwly and soooo carefully, with the most serious expression Ive ever seen, holding the ring pillow as if it were an atom bomb about to go off.

 

The flower girls, the bride's daughters, came shooting up the aisle, ignoring the flowers, to their grandmother in the first row. "IVE GOT AN OWWIE ON MY FINGER! LOOK!"

[Whereneverever]

My 2.5 year old DD2 has lately begun yelling, "ALL DONE" every time she hears amen in church. This is particularly embarrassing for me because I'm the pastor's wife. :lol:

[Nakia]

Oh, let's see. There was the day in church when the pastor called the children forward for the children's sermon. We were having a baptism that day, and the pastor was talking about that. Catherine was 2.5, and she said, "That's the baby!" Pastor Mark said, "Yes, and we're going to welcome him into God's family." Catherine, who was sitting next to the pastor and speaking into his mike, then said, "He came from his Mommy's egg and his Daddy's sperm and then he came out his Mommy's v*gina!"

 

 

 

I have a similar one. The first time we took Cora to church after she was born, Emma (2.5 at the time) was standing beside me as several of the older ladies ooohed and aaahed over Cora. One of them asked Emma if she liked her baby sister, and she said, "Yes, and she came out of my mommy's v*gina--right there" as she nicely pointed to my v*gina. I was mortified, and I think the ladies were too.