Cookie Monster

Today, I had Joseph with me during Priesthood while mommy was playing piano in Young Women's. Taking a little one to Priesthood is always an interesting experience. For the other brethren, it's enjoyable to see a fresh young face, since they're mostly used to seeing old men. You get the occasional knowing grins from High Priests who've been through it all before, and the smirks from Elders who've just been freed from a similar burden now that their children are in nursery.

For the child, it must be an awesome experience - and not necessarily in a good way - to hear the halfhearted crooning of 60 men trying to sing an opening hymn that either (1) has a melody that hardly anyone knows, (2) has a range that is completely inaccessible to most of the older men and which the younger men refuse to sing so that they don't look like girly-men to their peers, or (3) has been started off on a note that was either too low or too high to begin with so that half way through, everyone's straining to hit a note that would normally be easily achieved, were the song sung in the right key. I'm also amazed when we start off in one key, and end in another. It's great to watch Joseph, who has just been gleefully playing with a hymn book, stop and stare, wide-eyed, mouth agape, at the subsonic drone that arises - I think that elephants in Africa are probably doing the same thing about then. I'm overly critical, but it does take one aback.

After opening exercises, we split off and went to the Elders' quorum meeting room. The young women had baked and distributed cookies to the Priesthood to thank them for taking the youth to the Temple to perform baptisms for the dead. So, there in Elders' quorum was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and a one-year-old Joseph. We sat at the end of the semicircle of seats, in the chair nearest the door; the cookies began their distribution on the opposite end of the line, and went from Elder to Elder. You should have seen Joseph light up as the plate came to us, and I knew that I wasn't going to have to do much to entertain him during the lesson this time around.

Joseph chowed down on his first cookie. Then the plate went around again, and oh what joy! There was another cookie for Joseph. I tried to give it to him piece by piece, since the previous cookie had been pretty crumbly, but that didn't go over well; Joseph grabbed the cookie from my hand and went to town. But was he satiated? Hah. Yeah, right.

In the mouth of the semicircle of chairs sits the instructor's table which is sufficiently expansive to spread from one end of the semicircle to the other, with about one or two feet of clearance. Now sitting on the edge of this table, nearest our end was this plate of cookies, saran wrap carelessly ripped off, cookies begging to be eaten. And here am I, with Joseph sitting on my lap, reaching out for the cookies, yearning, begging for one more cookie - no, for the whole plate. Unsuccessful in stretching, he now does the hip thrust, jutting his pelvis out over the edge of my knee, simultaneously scrunching his shoulders in, and lifting his arms into the air, gravity now his ally as he becomes a slippery worm, sliding from my hands. He's tiny, though, so that my hands can reach around his chest and hold him tight to keep him from slipping; this elicits little screeches of dissatisfaction and complaint. I offer him a bottle, he takes a little, and then determines that it is no comparison to the sweet and bitter saltiness that is a chocolate chip cookie.

I set him on the floor, cookies out of sight, and at last have a few moments of peace until he begins pulling diapers and anything else he cand find out of the diaper bag. He finds a small bag with a few Cheerios (Mormon Manna) in it, tries to figure out how to get into the bag, and then hands it up to me with a commanding "eh!" Pleased to have something else to give him, I gladly open the bag and give him a few Cheerios.

On the way out of Priesthood, I snagged and palmed one last cookie to give him as a treat during Sunday School. This he devoured as he sat on mommy's lap, getting cookie crumbs all over her black shirt before Sacrament Meeting, in which she was scheduled to perform a special musical number. I suppose it all could have been much worse, but oh! what an adventure can Priesthood be.