Gum anyone?

My littlest is at that age in which it seems we never make it through a Sunday without one of us taking her out of church. Today she was her usual self: standing on the bench, making faces at the people behind her, sprawling on the bench, kicking her brother... and a new thing for her- chewing gum. Yeeup. I have come to the conclusion that whoever invented gum obviously never had kids. And this mother that continues to buy her kids gum and give it to them in church on Sunday morning obviously needs a mental examination. (Now might also be a good time to mention the fact that this very same mom willingly bought a bubble gum machine from a garage sale a few weeks ago, filled it up, and set it up in the kitchen corner. Come to find out the thing is broken. Which means you don't have to put money in to get a piece of gum out. In fact if you breathe within a three foot radius of the thing, out tumbles a handful of gumballs- much to my kid's excitement.)

Anyways, back to this morning. So there she was, chomping her gum with her four front teeth (that's all the poor girl has), blowing snot bubbles out of her nose at the people behind us thinking everyone was focused on her. I'm sure the girls behind us were so impressed with her unique talents. Especially the point where she picked up a songbook and pitched it right at those girls to which I spun around, mouthed Sorry! and hastily grabbed up all remaining songbooks within her reach.

Nearing the end of the first sermon she decided to lean back over the bench and spit her gum out on the floor. I looked back to see where it landed and there was one of those girls holding out the chewed up gum between her forefinger and her thumb with a slightly grossed out expression on her face. I humbly accepted the gum, gave another apologetic glance, and quickly sent Hannah over to my husband who scooped her up and headed out.

Flash forward a few minutes to halftime... er, uh... to the song and Jack needs a drink of water. So I bring him out for water and as we're getting back to the bench where we're sitting I notice he's crying. My gum! he sputters. So... I glance at the floor, find no gum in sight and realize now I need to retrace our steps to the drinking fountain to find another chewed up wad of gum- all the while hoping I don't encounter someone along the way with a puzzled expression and a string of gum attached to the bottom of their shoe and the floor.

Anyways, the gum was located, Ryan left again with Hannah sometime during the second sermon and the rest of us amazingly managed to keep our gum in our mouths. Whew.