RUDE!!!

Today we had Stake Conference, and knowing our stake was being divided Kyle and I stretched our kids to the ultimate limit to sit still just 2 more hours after a 10-hour drive yesterday. I admit, it was a huge mistake, only one of us should have gone. One or both of us ended up in the hall the whole time with our kids. So here's the story:

During the first 15 minutes of the meeting I was already in the hall with Spencer. He just couldn't sit still any longer (we'd arrived 30 minutes earlier). I didn't blame him. We'd finally made it home after 2 days in the car and we wanted him to be still and quiet again??? I didn't mind taking him out to the hall and letting him walk around as long as we were in the foyer so I could hear the speaker and our new stake boundaries. The hall situation was pretty clear at this point, since most kids were still being good. So it was nice to have a little room for him to walk around. He was being his normal one-year-old self, jabbering away and walking up and down the hall, but he was behaving much better than he had been inside the meeting.

Sitting in one of the seats in the foyer was this lady probably in her late 40's. She didn't have any kids with her, she had just chosen her seat in the foyer, and was sewing while listening to the speaker. From the beginning she did not have a pleasant look on her face. After Spencer and I had been in the hall 2 minutes, she looks up crossly, shushes Spencer, looks back down at her sewing and starts shaking her head as if to say, "I can't believe this mom is letting her kid walk around so noisily at church."

Holy cow, I almost exploded with outrage at her. First of all, if she wants to hear the speaker, choose a seat inside the chapel. Second of all, the hall is a place of refuge for small children who can't control their wiggles during a church meeting. Sure, if they're screaming take them outside for a minute. But that is WHY the hall is there! I thought I was doing the people in the congregation a service by taking Spencer out, but apparently, the entirety of the church building is off limits to noisy children.

I decided to control my temper and let it pass. (Yes, I should qualify for sainthood....hee hee, just kidding!) However, if she shushed my baby again she was definitely going to have it from me. A few minutes later I was pleased to find the hall slowly filling with noisy and crying children....WAY louder than Spencer had been. And by the end of the meeting it was a zoo out there, yet that lady still sat there sewing her little quilting pieces.

I probably should have given her the benefit of the doubt - maybe she had a medical condition that prevented her from going inside the chapel...maybe her hearing was extra sensitive...maybe a baby bit her once upon a time so she hates kids. I don't know. Whatever the case, her attitude towards my sweet baby boy got me a little riled up! (Hence the blog entry about it!)