SCARY LUTHERANS

I just dropped my kids off at a Lutheran church near our house, where they are having a Vacation Bible School. We are not Lutheran, but the kids have a friend whose Grandpa goes to that church, and the friend goes to the VBS, so our kids go to the VBS.

Now, I'm not maligning Lutherans by any means. This is a really nice VBS. Each kid gets a T-shirt, each family gets a CD, they engage the kids in enriching activities from 8:30 to 12:00 each morning for a whole week, and today they are even having pony rides--and it's FREE. VBS's around here usually at least charge for the shirt and CD. I'm very grateful to all the wonderful volunteers there for making my week so much easier, and for making the experience pleasant enough that the kids are willing to go.

I did notice, though, that the teachers in Lillie's room don't seem to be the mushy type. You know, there are some people who are naturally warm and friendly. They seem to do it effortlessly. People gravitate to them. Kids love them. I bet they come off wonderfully in job interviews and know exactly what to say when involved in a fender-bender or confronted with a door-to-door salesman. They exude happiness and accessibility. For want of a better term, I will refer to them as the Beautiful People.

I am not a Beautiful Person, not at all. So much so that I don't even worry about it, don't even say to myself, Gosh, I'd like to be like that. Until pigs fly or they start storing snowballs in hell, it's just not gonna happen. I can't even try to do it. I don't know how.

But, like most people, if I have to leave my kids with someone, I am relieved if it turns out to be one of the Beautiful People.

Anyway. I finally persuaded Lillian to stay in the four- and five-year-old room with the slightly standoffish Lutherans. She was okay with it, and she went back today for the pony rides, although she informed me that tomorrow she's not going.

As I walked down the hall, today, I noticed some interactions between small children and slim, youngish Lutheran mothers and teachers (are there no fat Lutherans?). From the two- and three-year-old room, rattled off quite fast: " . . . and that is Miss Amy, and she and myself are your teachers, so you ask us if you need anything, do you understand that?" I peeked in the door and saw a woman leaning over and talking to a little boy who was, well, two or three, and looking up at her solemnly.

A little blond girl had been wailing and following her mother, a volunteer, since I walked into the building. The reason for this became plain when I was walking out again, and spotted the mother standing in a corner, holding the little girl and lecturing her fiercely: "You are two years old. You do NOT need to be carried."

Okay, I didn't really catch the age. She might have said, "You are three years old." But as someone who hauls the kids around pretty much whenever they want it until they are so heavy I literally can't hoist them off the ground, the whole "walk for yourself" concept was new to me.

The thing is, even though I sometimes want some freedom from these kids, I know that the day will come--possibly when I am about sixty--when I have no kids to snuggle, and I will look back, and think, Where did it go? Why did I waste it? Why did I not spend every single second with them when they were two, three, five?

A woman in my grandmother's nursing home, whose mind is pretty much gone, carries a baby doll with her everywhere. Rumor has it that she lost a baby when she was young, and that now she won't give up the doll because she thinks it's her lost baby.

I can see myself in the nursing home, years from now (I hope), carrying around a doll, visited occasionally by my sane, grown children or grandhchildren, who cluck over what Mom has become, and then go home to try to find babysitters for their own kids so they can get out for a while.

Ah, well. I'm straying from the point here, which is, I guess, to enjoy your kids while you can, because, incredibly, it will all be over soon. Even if you are Lutheran.