Sickness and Service

Last night, I heard Carmen crying around 5:30 am.  Usually she sleeps really well through the night and only wakes up if something is wrong.  The problem is, if *I* get up out of bed, I'm never going to fall back asleep.  After several minutes, I poked Mark and asked if he'd go check in on her in case she had a poopy diaper or something.  By the time he got up, Carmen had quieted.  He stood out in the hall for a couple minutes, listening, and came back to bed.

This morning, I went into her room to get her and the room was really stinky.  She was sleeping in one corner of her crib and the other corner -ew- had a pile of half-digested food.  Poor girl!  I pulled off her sheets and started a load of laundry, and Mark rinsed her off in the shower.  She was running a slight fever and I've been feeling sick to my stomach for the past few days, so I decided I'd stay home from church with her and so we could both rest and feel better.  I didn't want to risk her getting anyone at church sick, especially since we work in the Nursery.  Mark wanted to stay home with both of us, because if I was knocked out in bed and Carmen woke up and needed something, I probably wouldn't be too thrilled to have to take care of her.

This wouldn't be such a big deal for me if it weren't for one thing - we're the Nursery leaders in our ward.  I won't miss Nursery unless I need to, because we're kind of short on people in there as it is (about 15-18 kids show up every week and there are 4 of us who are assigned to take care of everyone.  It's kind of organized chaos.)  Luckily, a few of the parents in our ward stay in with their kids and help out.  I hope that some day we can get more people called to Nursery so these parents can go enjoy Sunday School!  If we had more people we could more easily handle the kids who are having a hard time adjusting to Nursery.

Anywho.  So we needed to find substitutes.  I called up my best friend in the ward to ask if she and/or her husband could possibly step in for us today.  She graciously accepted.  After I hung up, I felt kind of bad (don't we all feel guilty sometimes for the silliest things?) because I'm sure she doesn't wake up in the morning thinking, "Hey, what I'd *really* like to do today is spend 2 hours in a room full of 18- to 36-month-olds."  But you know what?  Her sacrifice means a lot to me and a lot to a dozen couples in the ward who finally have a chance to attend their Church meetings without a little one running around disturbing the peace.

:)

So, substitutes, thank you so much for stepping in and helping out.  We really need and appreciate your service!  It's amazing how much more smoothly things run when we have the manpower to accomplish that which needs to be done!