• Cheers: VBS starts tomorrow at the church. I am commandeering a group of youth to present the Bible story through drama each day. Tomorrow we are doing the creation story, and I wrote a little reader’s theater with props to prompt audience (kid) participation:

Narrator: In the beginning when God created, there was nothing.
And God said, let there be…
[hold up candle]
Audience: LIGHT!
Narrator: And there was light.
God called the light day, and the darkness God called night.
God saw that it was…
[hold up “Good!” poster]
Audience: GOOD!
Narrator: And there was evening and morning, the…
[hold up “1st” poster]
Audience: FIRST DAY!

Should be fun. We make animal sounds on day six and all sorts of silly stuff.

• Cheers: You may wonder what aspects of worship a pastor particularly enjoys, since s/he is working and thus needs to be “on” throughout the service. My favorite moment in worship comes near the beginning, after I come in and sit down on the front row, we have a few announcements, a time of silence, a short musical introit, then the call to worship. Then comes my favorite part, during the first hymn, when little she-who-is takes my hand and starts twirling along with the music. If you haven’t sung “God of Grace and God of Glory” with a 3 1/2 year old spinning around while grasping your finger, well, you just haven’t done Fosdick any justice.

• Jeers: Last night the divine miss m woke up every hour. Every Single Hour. We finally brought her into bed with us, where I was able to get some sleep, punctuated by regular kicks to the boob.

Current theories are teething, general fussiness due to various developmental milestones she’s working on, and demon baby in need of exorcism growth spurt. We have added a lullaby CD to the bedtime routine and tried to be more diligent about two cereal meals a day, in case our Garganuan Baby is no longer satisfied by milk alone.

• Cheers and Jeers: Related to that, I realized that with the advent of solids, I am nursing miss m as much as I ever will again. It may take weeks, or months, but breastfeeding is on its way out.

• Cheers: C begins swimming lessons tomorrow. It’s gonna be crazy—6 p.m. Monday and Wednesday. Somehow we'll get her a snack beforehand and probably a small dinner afterward. Ah well, it's only for four weeks.

• Oops, time to go.