Crying at Church for All the Wrong Reasons

I wanted a picture of the three of us this morning in our Sunday duds, but as usual the camera and E weren't in the mood. We casually handed E over the half door into the arms of a stranger at church and quietly slipped away. I paused at 10 paces and craned my ear to listen for him to protest. Which he did. I played it cool and headed for the coffee bar, telling myself "no one wants to see a mom and her 1yr old cry, so suck it up!" With a lump in my throat threatening to erupt like Krakatoa in the church lobby, I sent my dutiful husband back 3 times to see if E had stopped crying yet. He hadn't. At this point I was beginning to look like a lurker casing the coffee/donut stand, threatening to steal all the Krispy Cremes and styrofoam cups. I resigned myself to moving into the sanctuary. I knew I could squeeze one more pass out of Chris if I waited until we were seated and timed it between worship and church announcements. Why was I being such a baby?! I knew he was in perfectly capable hands, surrounded by kids his age and a plethora of toys. Fortunately for him he's always one of the cute ones in the room, lending him to guaranteed hold-time from the ladies in the nursery (its true).... Having a baby in the nursery is kind of like being entered into a high stakes raffle, watching, waiting for your winning number to be displayed on the large screen ahead of you. Each kid has a number assigned to them for security purposes and I waited anxiously (Krakatoa still threatening) for my number to finally pop up so I could go rescue my baby from the throws of the nursery. A girl about 10 rows ahead of me was one of the lucky ones. I cursed her silently and waited my turn. Which didn't come. Hmm, could he be playing happily and I'm sitting here suffering, agonizing over nothing? Well, not exactly. We slipped out of the sanctuary while they were finishing up the final prayer and I walked briskly to the nursery, to avoid the rush of the crowd of course. There E sat, being held by one of the nice ladies (duh, told you so) in a rocking chair. He was quiet but obviously had no intentions of moving from his perch to join the other children playing at her feet. I smiled at her and indicated that I was there to claim my prize. She stood and walked toward us, and as soon as E caught sight of us he launched into sobbing, sniffling, and gasping. The nice lady handed him over and said he did 'ok' but insisted on being held and kept squeaking out 'ma ma' the majority of the time he was in the clink. Kindergarten is shaping up to be a doozie. Maybe next week we will both do better.