We might get banned from the front row at church.

I make the acolyte schedule for church, and I'm terrible at it. I forget about it until the last minute and then I usually have to try two or three times to get it right. Tucker and Keaton always acolyte together at the 8:00 service, about once a month. The weekly acolytes sit on the front row and the parents sit on the next one.

Semi-relevant back story: I had the first half of a root canal on Friday afternoon, worked the Consol football game Friday night, spent 5-6 hours at Tucker's football game Friday morning/afternoon, and then spent 6 or so hours at the Aggie football game Saturday night. By Sunday morning I was tired and had overdone it a little with the whole half-finished root canal thing.

The boys were scheduled to acolyte, but Tucker was starting confirmation in the afternoon, so he's technically graduated from being an acolyte. He decided he was done, so Keaton did it alone. No big deal.

Until I started crying. I realized that Tucker is growing up and will never acolyte again. And someday Keaton won't either. And I remembered a few people I know indirectly who have lost children in the last week and my heart broke for them, for the things they won't get to experience with their kids. I looked at my boys and remembered how precious time is.

And the cry got uglier.

Finally, Trey whispered in my ear, "I think this is the third week in a row you've cried at church. People are going to start thinking I either beat you or I'm leaving you." While neither of these things are funny, it made me giggle. He always knows just what to say. :)

I started trying to dry it up.

About that time, Tucker, ever-oblivious, attempts to whisper, "Is Mesopotamia in the Bible? We're studying about it in social studies." Only his voice is changing and he doesn't have a whisper anymore, so he kind of shouted this at me while we were sitting on the second row. I shushed him, but then I had to answer him because it was a great connection and I wanted him to see it through.

The waterworks continued, but did slow down a little. I think during a prayer or something the crying picked up again so after it was over Trey motioned to Tucker to hand me a tissue because there was a box next to him. I was sitting between them.

Miming ensued. The mouthing of words with no sound but with strong facial expressions. Trey telepathically told Tucker to get his mom a tissue. Tucker telepathically argued about why it wasn't necessary. Facial expressions and hand motions changed accordingly. Finally, Tucker reached over and got a tissue.

And blew his own nose.

Keep in mind that his mom has been sobbing right next to him for the better part of ten minutes, and he has no idea that he should hand the kleenex to me. In case you didn't guess, he's pretty clueless sometimes.

This was, of course, hysterical and sent me into fits of heaving, silent laughter. I couldn't stop laughing, but we were sitting on the front row and I knew the entire church, choir and clergy included, had to be wondering what on earth was wrong with us.

Let's file the rest of these under "also happened during church yesterday":

• Keaton and Tucker actually managed to find a way to wrestle during a song even though they were sitting on different pews.
• Tucker tapped me on the shoulder more than once to get me back on track because I was behind in my notes.
• Tucker announced to me in his non-whisper that he thinks he can now move his ankle bone around.
• Keaton expressed his surprise during every song of communion by turning around to me and saying "How do you know this song?" He did this during EVERY SONG.

It occurred to me that this one hour church service was a microcosm of my life. And so, if we get kicked off the front two rows of church it will be our own fault. Maybe Keaton can acolyte from now on from, like, row 20.