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separation

Harvey in a lion costume with Ollie behind him

bring brave about Kids' Church

Yesterday was a big day for Harvey—for our whole family, really. After well over a year of taking turns hanging out with him in the back of the sanctuary every Sunday, we took the momentous step of dropping him off at Kids' Church... and leaving him there.

Naturally, he did totally fine. Which is kind of amazing because not only was it his first time in any sort of formal child-care/education setting, it was his first time spending more than two minutes apart from his family at all. Yes, he's spent plenty of time with his grandparents, but apart from a few panicked minutes at Will's house (all the way across the street) before Will's mom brought him back home, he's never allowed us to entrust him to the care of strangers.

The Sunday before last I prepared him for the big day by getting him all signed up, introducing him to the space and the people, and staying with him through the morning. He was super nervous at first, but warmed up quickly when he saw all the toys that were available—and the bubbles at the end clinched the deal. It was also very nice that his best friend Ollie was there; and it was his first day too!

There were some anxious moments yesterday as we dropped him off. I had definitely hinted at it in the car, but he hadn't quite grasped the idea that we were going to be leaving him; no more did we quite believe that we'd be able to pull it off. But as Leah hung by the doorway watching him (I had given up and gone to church; we didn't need two anxious hovering parents!) he was doing so well that she slipped off without even saying goodbye. Goodby again, that is.

When I picked him up the staff said he had done great: not upset at all. Apparently he asked once after Mama, but when they told him she had gone to get him a bagel he accepted the answer and went back to playing. We'll take it! I'm looking forward to a few good months of sitting with my wife in church before we need to take turns removing Zion. Although there's always Baby Church...

comments

Hey, I signed him up for kids church, thankyouverymuch. It took 20 minutes figuring out all the tabs on the kidssafe program!

I like the title of you post. Sabbath it is!

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