Hubris

While sitting at the organ today, I looked lovingly at my husband and three youngest children and thought, "Just look at that! Only three short years ago, we were the subjects of an entire fireside addressing irreverence in our ward. But NOW! Look at us! WE ARE SO REVERENT!"

At that very moment nemesis was lurking under Timothy's shirt in the form of a white plastic electronic disk out of Nigel's Tweety Bird birthday balloon.

It carried on lurking right through the first two speakers and a lengthy musical number, but about five minutes into the High Council talk, Tom discovered it and yanked it out. It was motion sensitive, of course, so Tweety immediately announced in a loud voice:

"A witto biwd told me it was yow BIWTHDAY! (singing, obnoxious Tweety Bird voice)
Happy Biwthday to you,
Happy Biwthday to you,
Happy Biwthday witto tweety,
Happy Biwthday to YOU!
A BIG Happy Biwthday fwom a witto chick!"

The entire Mumford bench collapsed into a heaving, soggy pile of hilarity. Both adults were seized by the fatal combination of deep mortification and uncontrollable giggles. Without fully thinking things through, Tom attempted to muffle the singing (it was pretty loud) and as a result set the whole song off for a second time.

Tim and Nigel were both laughing--loudly--and Alex was trying to crawl under the bench. Tom and I were both hiding our magenta faces from each other and the rest of the congregation. Taking it out while it was in full voice was impossible, but the song lasted an unbearably long time. The High Councilor valiantly pressed on with his talk, although it was nearly inaudible.

At last, the song ended, and Tom and I started arguing, sotto voice, about who should have to carry the salad-plate-sized object out. It wasn't something you could tuck under your arm or in a bag--its extreme sensitivity to motion meant that it needed to be carried like a stick of live dynamite, S L O W L Y, S L O W L Y and
G I N G E R L Y down the aisle. The ultimate humiliation.

Alex at last took it. It didn't go off until he had (barely) cleared the chapel door. So much for the Mumfords and reverence.

When we got home, Tom asked Timmy sternly whether or not he had learned his lesson. "You'll never do something like that again, will you?" he asked, iron in his voice. "You've learned that it isn't worth it, haven't you?"

There was a long pause while Tim quite obviously considered whether it was more dangerous to tell a bald-faced lie, or whether he ought to risk the wrath of Dad by admitting that it was about the most worthwhile caper he had ever attempted.

"I think," he said at last, "that I won't try that idea again."

There's a ward fireside tonight--no kids, just parents. Wonder what they're going to talk about.

In other Tim moments:

Tim wasn't just pathologically irreverent in Sacrament meeting, he was miserably bad in Primary, too, so Tom and I had (yet another) big talk about reverence when we got home. Tim said, "Look. I've learned all there is to know at my level. I'm ready to move up."

"You have not!" Alex, who was illegally lurking, said. "Who wrote down the Book of Mormon when Joseph Smith was translating?"

"Well," Tim replied, "at first it was his wife, Emma, and then it was Oliver Cowdery."

Also, Wednesday night, he told me that he had written a "lyric poem" about his future. I asked him what the poem said.

"It's just about how I'll feel when at last I'm in my room with all my materials, inventing," he said.

"But Tim," I said, "What materials do you need? I'll get you stuff so you can start inventing now."

He sighed. "Sorry, Mom. That won't work. Eight is too young to weld."

Just Thoughts

One of the counselors in our bishopric bought a house in another ward (okay, it was my fault, but let's not go into that) and gave his farewell speech today. He made the BEST comment ever. He said: "Most of you are pretty weird. Maybe no one's ever told you that before, but it's true." Then he went on to talk about our terrific ward community. Well, what he said is absolutely true. Our ward is full of weird people. I'll frankly admit to being among them, but if there is such a thing as a weirdness level that goes from, say, believing that if you say your prayers out loud the devil can capture them (this would be a high level) or denying the truthfulness of plastic refrigerator dishes (still high for me) down to a propensity to sing certain hymns with a bluegrass twang (I would call this lower on the scale, if perhaps slightly more annoying in sacrament meeting)...um...this sentence is developing BOM proportions...IF, I say, there is such a sliding scale, I think the Mumford family is slightly below our ward median of weirdness. That is, we have a lot of people who believe, say, wear, and eat VERY weird things. But after our bpric member made this comment, I reflected that I would much rather have a weird ward than an ordinary ward.

We've LOVED our weird wards. In the ordinary ones, I think there is too much conformity of thought, which leads to both boredom and a stultifyingly orthodox culture. Narrow minds! Sleepy gospel doctrine classes! Uneducated youth! Etc. So give me the weird. A big group of people preaching their competing far-out gospel ideas makes for great table discussions at home.

It was a beautiful Easter for us. Long live the sunrise service, although Nigel fell asleep IN church, and Tom and I fell asleep after it.

I'm finally starting to prepare for Cub Scout Day Camp this summer. The theme is the Middle Ages. I have a problem with these themes. They sound fine in theory: last year, Pirates. Arrrgh! But after you've pounded together some treasure chests, what are you going to do with this theme? Next, we'll learn to rape and pillage on the north lawn! Well, the middle ages are just more of the same. I've never been too excited about the middle ages, to tell you the truth. All those SOCA dudes in their period dress with period names, heavy swords, and reenactments, they make me nervous. I've never liked dungeons and dragons either, or tae kwon do, and I'm going to freely admit (although I think I probably shouldn't) that all this stuff goes together in my mind. Anyway, I've been avoiding it for most of my life. I have a big historical hole from about the fall of the Roman Empire straight through to the Renaissance. I've always felt fine about this. Isn't that the definition of the dark ages--a historical hole?

Anyway, I just checked out a boatload of books from the library and pulled a bunch of relevant looking things off my own shelves to start doing my homework (Tom's comment: "You're reading Idylls of the King??? Who reads Tennyson to prepare for Cub Camp? I'm scared for those boys!") And guess what? This is going all the way back to the middle of the last paragraph where I observe that the middle ages is more of the same. WAR WAR WAR. Play war. Real war. Weaponry. Building castles for protection. Building trebuchets and swords and long bows and armor for attacking. Practicing the art of war by hunting. Feasting your friends and then (if you're a Campbell) killing them in the night because you decided they were actually your enemies. Oh, we can wring a few puppet shows and maybe a juggling class out of the lighter side of the middle ages, but let's face it. The whole period is death and destruction.

When I first heard about the theme, I thought we'd get creative and do Gallileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, but of course all the good stuff is the RENAISSANCE...the END of the middle ages. Why do we choose these stupid themes for our boys? Because nobody is THINKING about the content of the program. They're just thinking that the boys like to play sword fighting. Duh. If I hear one more thing about jousting with fun noodles, I'm going to scream. Our Day Camp program is supposed to be designed around 12 character connections like citizenship, compassion, and cooperation. I'm not saying compassion was not present in the middle ages. I'm just saying that a lot of these character points were not hallmarks of the age. Maybe we could find better themes? Just a thought.