Things I Have Said to Sunbeams

Have you ever noticed that you find yourself saying the strangest things when talking to children?  About a year ago, I realized I had said some really abnormal things to our primary children.

I wish I had started sooner, because this list didn't get very long.  But I just noticed that it was sitting as a draft and since we teach 12 year olds now, instead of 3 year olds, I don't plan to add as many strange things to this list.  (Although, sometimes with 12 year olds, it can get even more strange.)

So here are some of the strange things I said to our 3 year old primary children in our last year of teaching them:

• "Don't suck on your knees"
• "You need to walk with your eyes open"
• "Don't sit on your play doh"
• "Watch out for the walls" - This one was a warning that they often repeated to each other.
• "You need to walk forward"
• "You are not a tiger"
• "You need to keep your clothes on"

Now that we teach the 12 year olds, the most interesting thing we say is "put away your electronics during the prayer."  They are very similar to the 3 year olds in many ways.  Both classes are like herding cats.  But at least the 12 year olds don't suck on their knees, they keep their clothes on and they are fully aware they are not wild animals.

The Purple iPad

For all of those who enjoyed the posts I wrote about our experiences teaching the 3 and 4 year-olds in our church,  I have some sad news.  We have been released from that position and we now teach the 12 and 13 year-olds.  I'm actually really excited about it.  We just had our second Sunday working with them and I love it.  I have been super impressed with their knowledge of the gospel and their desires to learn and grow.  But, unfortunately, they probably won't say as many cute and amusing things.  I still reserve the right to write about them, but I don't promise it will be as amusing.

All that being said, I still have a story about one of our little Sunbeams.

I actually didn't experience this story.  It is a Robyn original.  However, I've written before about how much it costs to get Robyn to write on her blog.  I can't afford her services, so I'm just going to write it myself.

There is one girl who was a little bit difficult in our class.  She didn't like to cooperate and was often defiant just for the pure fun of being defiant.  Robyn was kind of amazing, and eventually got her to behave in class, but she had to spend lots of one on one time getting her to understand the rules.  I'm especially proud of Robyn that we never had to send her to her mom.

Now that our Sunday School with the 12 year-olds allows us to attend our 3rd hour meetings, Robyn gets to enjoy Relief Society.  She had been asked to come to the front and share some thoughts.  At that same moment, this same little girl was brought in by her new teachers to be with her mom.   She looked up and saw Robyn and whispered to her mom, "That's my old teacher.  She has a purple iPad, but you can't play with it if you're bad."

I guess, after everything we tried to teach her, the lesson that she feels is the sum of all our teachings is, "bad kids can't play with the purple iPad."  I would have hoped for something like, "Jesus loves you."  But we'll take what we can get.

The iPad is actually white, but it has a purple case.  It also has pictures of me, which makes it very awesome.

The Importance of Penguins

Today we were teaching our Sunbeams about the importance of the Scriptures in our lives.

Robyn had a clever little lesson planned.  We brought an assortment of different kinds of books and placed them on the table.  The kids were super curious, and they wanted to know what all the books were for.

Robyn brought her scriptures all wrapped up like a present.  She told the kids that there was something very precious inside.  She let each of the kids take turns helping unwrap it.

Finally, it was revealed that there were scriptures inside the present.  We told them how the scriptures could help guide is in our lives, and how they are very special.

Robyn set the scriptures on the table with all of the other books, and then asked the thought question, "So which of all these books is most important?"

One kid, excitedly exclaimed, "The animal one!"

This was the "animal book" on the table.

I mean, one book has the words of eternal life, the other has pictures of penguins.  The choice is clear.

We have really touched their lives.

Open Questions, Awkward Answers

Sometimes when teaching children, one method I've seen employed is what I term the, "guess the mind of the teacher" method.  This is where you ask an open ended question, but you have a "correct" answer in mind that you are trying to get the children to guess.  There's not necessarily anything wrong with this method.  However, I've noticed that sometimes an open ended question leads to a myriad of answers that you did not foresee.

For example, today we were in Sharing Time (this is where all of the Primary children of various ages get together to sing songs and have a lesson).  The woman who was giving the lesson put up a bunch of different pictures.

These are two of the pictures she put up.  (The top is Adam and Eve from the Bible, the bottom is Lehi and his family from the Book of Mormon.)

She asked the children what the different pictures had in common.  She was looking for something about prophets.  But, I'm pretty sure the answers she got were not quite what she was looking for:

• "There are people in them."
• "They are on the ground."
• "The people have faces."
• "The people are nice."

She might not have gotten what she was looking for, but it was far less awkward than a lesson we had a while back.  In this particular lesson, our Bishop had come in to teach the children.  He was teaching about how men get the priesthood and all members are able to receive blessings through the priesthood.  However, his open ended question was perhaps not as well thought out as it should have been.

He asked the children, "What is something that only boys have?  It starts with a P."  There were some kids who raised their hands as fast as they could, because they knew they had the answer to this one.  It turns out, there is a part of the male anatomy that starts with a P.  These children proudly declared it when called upon.

The Bishop did a good job of just moving on, but the awkwardness was palpable.

So, when asking open ended questions to small children, you may want to think about what all the possible answers are.

On second thought, don't.  It's funnier that way.

Where is His Face?

I have to share a story that has an overabundance of cuteness.  I don't know if I'll be able to portray the cuteness properly.  Hopefully it's not one of those, "you had to be there" scenarios.

As I've mentioned before, we work with the Sunbeam class at our church.  That is the 3 and 4 year olds.  We always meet first in "sharing time" with the whole primary, before we break off into our individual classes.  We have 4 little boys in our class, and several of them try to be the first ones to get to sharing time, so that they can get the very coveted seat next to me.  (The girls all want to sit next to Robyn, although one of the girls always needs to hold my hand when we walk to class.)

There is one particular boy who cries when his mom drops him off, but he is appeased as long as he gets to sit next to me.  He is the cutest little kid, and we have one particular conversation that we have repeated a number of times.

Before I explain the repeated conversation, I have to show you my favorite tie.

My favorite tie depicts Captain Moroni holding the Title of Liberty.

I wear this tie fairly often, and this little boy always asks me about it.  He always takes my tie in his hand, and examines it very closely.  He always looks extremely concerned, and after a few minutes of thought, he asks, "Where is his face?"  

I always try to explain that the picture is too small to see a face.  He usually follows up with, "I can't see his eyes."  I usually try to say something about how his eyes are even smaller than his face.  He usually accepts this after a few minutes.

Perhaps next time I'll bring this in.

The Arm Folding Evangelist

As I've said before, Robyn and I work with the 3 and 4 years olds at our church.  There is one particular girl who is super cute and super imaginative.  It is particularly difficult to help this girl stay quiet.  She is never defiant, she just imagines she is some place more awesome than sitting in her chair in Primary.

For example, one moment we are all sitting there quietly and then she suddenly remembers that she is a ballerina.

This is what she thinks she looks like

This is the reality.  

You'll notice the reality looks pretty similar to the fantasy, she's spinning.  She has a dress.  It's all basically the same, except that it has me chasing after her trying to stop the performance.  At one point I picked her up to place her back on her chair.  She pointed her feet and arched her back.  I'm pretty sure I just became her dancing partner and we were doing some sort of fancy lift.

So, after a few fancy lifts, I decided I should negotiate.  I explained to her that once we get to class (at this point we were in sharing time, with all of the other Primary classes) we have blocks available to play.  But only kids who are reverent get to play with the blocks.

Instantly, the ballerina was no more.  She sat down on her chair, folded her arms and gave me the "I'm so innocent" smile.  I gave her a thumbs up and she beamed with pride.  

Then she looked at the boy sitting next to her.  He was sitting quietly, but his arms weren't folded.  She had to put a stop to this great tragedy.  She quickly got out of her chair and joined him on his chair.  He looked at her with great dismay.  But she began evangelizing him.  She exhorted him to fold his arms so he could receive the promised reward of blocks in the next class.

How do you help the evangelist understand that the boy who always sits quietly is doing just fine?  We did another fancy lift and got her back to her chair.  She was relatively quiet the rest of the time.  

She received the great reward of blocks in class, and even got to play with a puppet.  She lived happily ever after, at least until her dad came to pick her up.  The idea that she had to go home brought tears to her eyes.  That's how fun Primary is.

The value of showers

This is a story about Mother's Day.  I know I'm a little slow in posting it.  I've been kind of a blogging slacker lately, so bare with me.  Since Mother's Day was over a week ago, this can be one of those posts where I talk about the good old days and you all quietly mutter about how I'm really old and the story probably isn't true because my memory is gone.

So let me take you back with me to the old times.  Cast your memory back the the ancient days of slightly over one week ago.  Focus your mind on Mother's Day.

This image will totally get me brownie points with my mom.

We were in church with our sunbeams (Robyn and I teach the "sunbeam" class, which is what we call the 3 and 4 year olds) we were talking about mothers.  We asked the kids to share some of the things that their mothers do.  There were a number of answers such as their moms take care of them when they're sick, or make food for them or clean the house or various other motherly functions as seen by children.  One girl in particular had something very special to share about her mom: "My mom takes a really long shower and makes us late for church."

If you need someone to make you late for church, who better than a mom?

Later, we were making a cute little note from the kids to their moms.  It was one of those fill in the blank deals where it says "My mom is as pretty as a ______", "I love my mom because ________" and so on.

One of the questions was "My mom is the best at _________".  This same girl thought for a moment, to think about what her mom really excels at.  Finally she realized the obvious answer: "Taking showers."

So if you really want to impress your kids.  Take a long shower.

I'm Pretty Sure I'm Not an Adult

So Robyn and I were released as Sunbeam teachers.  (We used to teach the 3 and 4 year olds in our church but they've rotated someone else in to take a turn in that position.)  I was really excited to actually get a chance to be edified by attending Sunday School and just sitting back and listening.

We got to Sunday School and we realized it's been so long since we've attended that we didn't even know what the curriculum was this year. (They rotate each year between Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.)  As Robyn and I sat down she commented, "I wonder what we're learning about this year."  I looked at her with excitement because I knew the answer, "We're learning about Jesus!"  That's when I knew that I had permanently reverted back to being a Sunbeam. (Not that I ever really left.)

As time went on, it just got worse.  We had a great lesson in Elder's Quorum about the oath and covenant of the priesthood, but I just kept looking at my watch and thinking, "Isn't it singing time?" or "maybe we should play a game."  I do really enjoy being in the audience.  I do love to discuss the gospel, but there are a few things I'll miss about the sunbeams.  Here are a few of them.

The wonder they experience when learning the gospel
We were giving a Christmas lesson right before Christmas.  I asked them whose birthday we were celebrating.  The unanimous answer was "Santa".  But then one girl thought a little bit longer and said, "Jesus".  The others looked at her as if she were crazy and then she said, "Well, that's what my daddy told me."  We reassured her that her daddy was correct, and all the other kids were amazed.  I think the fact that Jesus had a birthday helped make Him a little more real to them.

The funny ways they interpret things
Robyn was sick on the Sunday before Christmas so I prepared the lesson all on my own.  I came up with a brilliant game to play.  I brought a star and had all the kids pretend they were wise men.  One kid got to carry the star and the others followed him or her around the room.  I told the wise men that they needed to pretend they were on camels.  One kid tried to take that as literally as possible.  He figured if he was riding a camel he would pretty much be doing the splits.  So he spread his legs as wide as possible, but in that position he really had trouble keeping up with the star.  It's not a very big room so they just march in circles.  It wasn't very long before the kid holding the star had caught up with the wide straddling camel rider and was now behind him.  The star became very angry, "I'm the star!  You have to follow me!  You can't be in front of me!"  This is where I worry about my future parenting skills.  I just think the whole thing is humorous.  Luckily, my friend Cameron was assisting me that day and he helped bring back order.

Their willingness to share their lives
They say there are two people in the ward who know everything:  The Bishop and the sunbeam teachers.   I think that just might be true.  They have a lot of interesting things to share.  I won't share the most incriminating ones but they're often pretty funny.  One of my favorites was when they all wanted to share what their parent's nicknames are: "My dad calls my mom babe!"  "Well, my mom calls my dad honey!"  "My mom calls my dad cupcake!"  "But you eat a cupcake!"  They all thought it was hilarious.

All in all, it's been a fun ride.  As I sat in Elder's Quorum I saw the new teacher with our class walking by with all of them as they folded their arms and walked in a line.  One of the dads saw her and commented, "She's got quite a handful there."  Then he reached up and patted me on the shoulder and said how his son liked our class.  It made me happy.  It made me miss them.  I'm going to enjoy getting to learn with the other adults.  But it will be my little secret that I'm not really an adult.  I don't really belong among them.

The Infamous Primary Program

This past Sunday we had our Primary Program. (In my church, once a year we have the children, ages 3-11 put on a program for the whole congregation.  It consists of them singing songs and giving very short speaking parts, usually 1-2 lines.)  Robyn and I are in charge of the Sunbeams (the 3 and 4 year olds).  This meant that we got to be involved in all the practicing and we got to sit up on the stand during the actual program and attempt to get the kids to do what they're supposed to.

I have to admit, my attitude wasn't quite where it should have been.  I was not excited about the various practices we went through.  Trying to get 3 years olds to sit quietly for 2 hours while other kids practice speaking parts or various songs is not the funnest activity in the world.  And, of course, they're supposed to stand for each song which means that I am trying to whisper, "Stand up.  It's time to stand up.  Let's all stand up."  By the time they stand up the song is usually over and I'm whispering, "Sit down. Sit down.  Sit on your chair.  Sit. Sit. Sit."

The practice we did on Saturday was particularly rough.  We had gathered at the church on Saturday morning, and we were doing a run through of the whole program.  One of the kids turned to me and said in the whiniest voice he could muster, "This is taking foooooreeeeevvveeer."  What could I say?  I wanted to be home playing on a Saturday just as much as he did.  I thought if I gave him some numerical data that he could understand it would help him put in perspective how much longer we had.  So I said, "There are just 2 more songs."  After we sang another song he turned to me and said, "After one more song I can go home?"  I wasn't sure exactly what the plan was but I said, "Ya, I'm pretty sure."

Well,  I shouldn't have been so sure.  After we finished going through the whole program, the Primary President stood up and said, "You kids did such a good job on our first run through.  Let's run through the whole thing one more time."  Now, at this point I wanted to cry.  I couldn't imagine the anguish our little 3 and 4 year olds were feeling.  I knew that the second run through would do nothing for our sunbeams.  At this point the goal of the second run through was to get through it alive.  I turned to this particular boy and said, "I'm so sorry.  I was wrong.  Now there are 9 more songs."

The day of the actual program came.  During the program there was plenty of "Time to stand up." and "Sit down. Sit. Sit. Sit."  But despite all that, I think I finally got it.  I finally understood what it was all about.  I looked out at the audience and saw tears on the faces of many of the parents of our little children.  The children were almost yelling as they sang, "Follow the Prophet, don't go astray."  And I really felt that they believed it when they sang, "I know that my Savior loves me."  I finally understood why we worked so hard.

These children really do know their Savior.  They know the simple truths of the gospel, which are that Jesus Christ lives and that he loves each one of us.  They may not know the deeper doctrines.  They can't quote scripture and they don't know the difference between a Jew and a Samaritan but they know the important things, they know that they are children of God.

I said a little prayer to repent for my bad attitude.  The one tear came to my right eye as I pondered the gospel truths that we were learning from these little ones.  I understood at that moment why our Savior said that we should become as little children.

WalMart

It's been a while since I have updated you all on the funny things our sunbeams say and do.  I thought I'd share an experience that happened today.

Our lesson was on how we should be thankful for food and clothes.  We started out by talking about some of their favorite foods, then we asked them where food came from.  "My dad" was the unanimous answer.  But we wanted to help them discover that food comes from plants and animals and ultimately exists because God made it for us. 

So we asked them where Dad got the food. 

"The grocery store"

"Where does the grocery store get food?"

"WalMart"

I guess WalMart is the source of all things.  Later, we were talking about clothes.  We asked where our clothes came from.  "WalMart" was again the answer. 

"Where does WalMart get the clothes?"

"WalMart"

I guess it just makes sense.  If the Lindon WalMart runs out of stuff, there has to be another WalMart that has what they need.  They probably just go buy it at the Orem WalMart.  So now you know.  It all came from WalMart.

Sunbeams Strike Again

Today was an important day in history.  You see, Robyn is in charge of girl's camp for the Young Women in our ward, so she hasn't been teaching the sunbeams with me because she's been involved with planning girl's camp.  Girl's camp will be this week so starting next week I will have Robyn back.  She's much better with them anyway, so it will be good.  For my final time without Robyn I had Cameron come be my teaching partner because he is great.

The children were particularly amusing today.  During singing time, which is the time when the sunbeams sit there and find anything to do besides sing, one of the little boys put his hand on my stomach and said, "You're fat."  I did my best to look offended but one of the other boys saw his hand on my stomach and decided he wanted to rub my belly.  So he gets up from his chair and comes over to rub my belly.  I thought it was hilarious, and this is why I am not a good primary teacher.  My first instinct is to laugh rather than tell them they need to stay in their chairs.

One of the little boys has a "future missionary" tag that he wears every week.  I asked him if he was going to be a missionary someday.  He said, "No, I don't like missionaries."  I told him I was a missionary once and he said, "I changed my mind.  I want to be a missionary.  I like missionaries."  I hope this means that he thinks I'm cool enough that if  I was a missionary once then they must be cool.  More likely, he just didn't want to offend me.

Another time, one of the children pointed to my mole and asked why I had a ball on my face. I told him it makes me pretty, because all the big supermodels have moles. He looked at me with a look of disdain, as if to say, "You really don't know what you're talking about."

The best scenario of all probably won't be funny to read.  I wish I had a picture.  We were learning about feelings today.  I had the kids show me what they would look like if they were happy, or mad, or sad.  At one point, I asked a kid to show us what he would look like if he was in love.  He got a far off look in his eye and a crazy grin.  I'm pretty sure he must have been in love at some point.  He captured it perfectly.  These kids know more than they let on.

Creative Minds

Recently Robyn was called to be the Young Women's camp director.  This means that until June she goes into class with the Young Women on Sundays so that she can get to know them better as she puts together everything for camp.  What this means for me is that I'm in charge of the sunbeams all by myself.  I'm pretty sure this means the Lord wants me to learn one of two things:

1.  Children are much too scary.  I am clearly not qualified to have any of my own. 
2.  Children are a piece of cake.  If I can handle 6 sunbeams then having our own kids should be a breeze.  Especially since we get to have them one at a time, and I don't have to do it by myself.

I'm not sure which way it's gonna go.  For the most part it hasn't been too difficult, but I still reserve the right to flee in terror.

That being said, they are pretty cute.  I have a few stories to share that gave me glimpses into their creative minds.

Play Doh
I brought out the Play Doh for the first time this year.  The kids are getting a little bit more mature so that they don't make a ridiculous mess.  They were excited out of their minds to be able to play.  One boy was trying to mash his Play Doh as flat as possible, so he climbed up on his chair and kneeled on it.  I stopped him as fast as I could, but it was too late, the Play Doh was already bonded to his pants at a molecular level.  I told him he couldn't kneel on it anymore, he could only use his hands.
"Can I sit on it?" No
"Can I stand on it?" No
"Can I use my head?" No, your head is not your hands.

I almost said yes to the last one, just for my own amusement, but I decided against it.

Coolest Thing Ever
This actually happened a few weeks ago when Robyn was still with me.  Robyn was telling the story of the Savior walking on water.  She got to the point where he was about to walk on water and she said, "And then he did something really cool."  But before she could say what that really cool thing was, one of the children thought in his mind what could be the coolest thing that Jesus could possibly do.  He blurted out, "A backflip!"  Robyn was a bit taken aback and said, "Well, if there had been a need for a back flip I'm sure he could have done it."  She then explained that he walked on the water.  But the kids were disappointed.  He didn't even do a back flip.

It's amazing to me how their little minds work.  They aren't limited by the box that we "grownups" seem to be trapped inside so often.  Maybe we should try flattening Play Doh with our heads.  How can we know it's not effective if we don't try it?

Shoot The Lions

I hadn't intended to write every week about the sunbeams.  But they just keep giving me new material.  First off, we took them for our weekly walk to the drinking fountain.  They all saw the perils ahead and screamed, "Watch out for the walls."  This was without any reminder from us.  We tried to tell them to just remember that in our heads and not yell it out.

Later, I was sharing the story of Daniel in the Lion's den from the Old Testament.  In an attempt to engage the children and help them realize that being in a lion's den would be a not fun scenario, I asked what they would do if they were stuck with a bunch of lions.  One child rose his hand, because he clearly had the solution.  When I called on him he said, "shoot them."  I asked, "But what would you do if you didn't have a gun?"  The reply: "I would buy one."  Rather then try to have a logical discussion with a three year old about how there wasn't a gun shop inside the den and even if there was, the background checks and what not would take more than 24 hours, I just decided to move on.  I explained that Daniel's solution was to pray to the Lord.  Then I tried to relate it back to them and say that they could pray in difficult situations.  At this point another child rose his hand and said, "I don't have a gun."  Yet another child piped in: "I like trains".

Well, I guess this is just one more way that I'm like a sunbeam.  I'm sure the Lord looks down at me sometimes and says, "Why can't you just learn what I'm trying to teach you?"  My reply: "I like dinosaurs."

Watch Out For the Walls

Every Sunday is a new adventure. I've said before how Robyn and I teach the 3 year olds in our church. Getting 3 year olds to do anything remotely organized is quite a feat. Whenever we need to move them from one place to another we have them all hold hands, this makes it much easier to keep the 7 of them from going in 7 different directions. The problem with holding hands is that there is always at least one (often more than one) that hold their right hand to their neighbor's right hand and this means that they have to walk backward. We try to tell them to walk forward but they just can't handle it. Even when they are walking forward they don't exactly pay attention to where they're going. All this culminated last week when we were going around a corner and one of the kids smacked his head into the wall.

This week we wanted to avoid that calamity. We tried fervently to get them to walk forward but Robyn also gave them a small warning. "When we go around corners, watch out for the walls." This was a simple reminder to not run into walls. We took the whole class on a little walk to the drinking fountain and when we went around the corner the kids were very wary of the danger that awaited them. They started yelling to each other so that they could protect each other. We were trying to quiet them but I couldn't help but laugh at the repeated ominous warning as it came from each child: "Watch out for the walls!"

I never thought of walls as being dangerous, but from the way the children expressed it they may as well have been yelling, "Watch out for the raptors!" Now that would have been a serious situation.

Why I'm Like a Sunbeam

Robyn and I teach the Sunbeams (3 and 4 year olds) in our church.  This past Sunday since it was a new year, our old sunbeams moved on to the next class and we inherited a whole new set.  During sharing time (a general gathering of all of the kids before adjourning to seperate classes) our old sunbeams were all sitting with new teachers but they all made sure to wave at us.  One little girl who was particularly attached to me made sure to come up and talk to me and let me know she was still around but she was in a different class.  As scared as I am of having my own children I was surprised how attached I had become to each of them.  During this past year with them I have discovered how much I really relate to them so I'd like to share a few reasons why.

We're not supposed to kneel on our chairs
We had one little boy who would always kneel on his chair during sharing time so he could see everyone who was sitting behind him.  I was constantly telling him to "sit on his pockets" while inside I was thinking, "I've heard what they're teaching before, besides I don't need to see them.  I could just listen while kneeling on my chair, then I would get a chance to see what all is going on in this room."  I've always been a people watcher.  I often wish I could kneel on my chair and just watch all the people behind me.

We're supposed to keep our thoughts focused on the lesson
It's always funny, we'll be teaching something and we'll ask a simple question.  One of the kids will raise their hand and say, "I'm going to Grandma's today." or "I have a dog." or "I like trains."  Sometimes I'm just excited about things, and I wish that we could talk about what I want to talk about.  Sometimes I wish we could just talk about dinosaurs or maybe cheese.

We're supposed to stay in our seats
One of our new sunbeams had an older sister in a different class.  Several times during sharing time he jumped up and ran to where she was sitting and just stood in front of her and waved.  Sometimes we all just want to share our love with others.  Sometimes we may be oblivious that it's not an appropriate time.  This is much like the time that I burst into relief society on Mother's Day because I wanted to give Robyn a flower.  Apparently I was supposed to wait until they were done with the lesson but I was so excited to give it to her.  I thought the rest of the Elders would come in behind me but alas, I was alone.  They got cranky at me for ruining the lesson but I just wanted to share love.

We're supposed to stay awake
There have been a few times when one of the kids is just exhausted and wants to lay down.  One time one of them laid his head on the chair next to him and was totally out.  I always want to be like, "I'm tired too.  This class is actually during my nap time."  At least this year our church is earlier so I will have time for a nap when I get home.

We comfort the afflicted
This past Sunday I saw the cutest thing ever.  One of the kids was really sad and missed his mom.  He was just crying to himself.  You couldn't really hear anything but it was apparent on his face.  The 3 year old boy sitting next to him just put his arm around him as if to say, "everything will be alright."  He then gave me a look that said, "Can't you see he's in pain?  Grownups should fix these things."  I wanted just as badly to comfort him but I didn't know what to do so I told Robyn to make it all better.  She held him and made him feel better. (She's amazing.)

So basically, I should be in the Sunbeams class rather than teaching it.  The good news is that Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam.