Promotion Sunday

This Sunday was "Promotion Day" for the children's ministry. All of the kids move up one class or grade and have new teachers and new classrooms. Not a big deal for the older children, but potentially catastrophic for the younger ones.

Ethan moved from the infant nursery to Toddler 1 (for one-year-olds). He has really been ready to move up since he started walking 5 months ago, but Toddler 1 was too full until the current kids moved to Toddler 2 today. The church-employed attendant in the infant nursery, Leigh-Carol, has been the only consistent caretaker in Ethan's life, and she's had him every Sunday morning since he was about 4-months-old. I had a little bit of a hard time leaving him with someone other than her, but he was actually excited to be in a new room full of new toys. He hardly noticed who the adult was in the room. He did cry when we left, but he always does that, even with Leigh-Carol. And he calmed down within a minute or two, just like always.

Caleb's transition was also a significant one. He moved from the "Baby/Toddler" side of things into the main children's ministry program. He's been in "Toddler 2" (2-year-olds) the whole year that we've been here. As a 3-year-old, he is expected to stay in church with us for the first 20-25 minutes (through singing and communion), and then leave when the kids are dismissed to children's church. We have been keeping him with us the first part of church for months now, so that part went smoothly as usual. At the appropriate time, I took him to his new 3-year-old classroom. There are very few toys in the 3-year-old room (as opposed to his old room). The 90-minutes of children's church and then Bible class is much more structured than what the mostly free play of the 2-year-old room, so I wondered how he would do. I was a little nervous to see that his classmates were mostly girls, which I thought would only highlight his rambunctious boyness. I think it actually ended up having a calming influence instead.

After the rest of church and then Bible class, I went to pick him up. I was very pleased that his teacher, Miss Julie, gave me a positive report. Since Caleb's never been in preschool and never had that much uninterrupted structure, I wasn't sure how he would do. Miss Julie told me that several others had trouble staying in their seats and paying attention, but that Caleb was great. I admit I was surprised, since he is usually pretty energetic, but very pleased as well. He came home with excited reports of what he did in his "Big Boy Class", and detailed explanations about the three crafts that he was toting. It warmed our hearts to hear him so happy about church. All in all, promotion Sunday was a sigh of relief for our little family.