Day of Rest?

Sundays can be a little hectic around here. Darin has meetings every Sunday morning starting at 7. I realize that with church at 11, this should still give me plenty of time to get myself and four kids ready, but we somehow manage to be in a frenzied hurry just about every week. I have learned a few tricks of the trade that have made Sunday mornings run a little more smoothly. This week I made sure to have all the kids' clothes ready for them, and made sure to turn on my "happy mom" voice before getting out of bed. It worked like a charm...for three out of the four of them. Sean was apparently less than thrilled with the clothes I had ready for him. He went upstairs to try and find something different. I knew he wouldn't find anything in his room. He is growing, and we haven't been shopping for new church clothes in a while so his options are limited, and his other clothes were dirty. I told him I was very sorry he didn't like what I had chosen for him, but that time was running out, and we were going to be leaving for church in 8 minutes--no matter what he was wearing. I had only heard of parents doing this, and wondered if I had it in me to really follow through. As time was up I called cheerfully to him that it was time to leave. The other kids went out to the van, and still no Sean. At this point I threatened to take away privileges if he wasn't downstairs by the time I got to 10 (another thing I do that I said I never would). Still no Sean. I knew that he valued the privileges I was threatening to take away, so I went upstairs to see what was going on, and I saw this:

I KNEW I didn't have it in me to take him to church naked, and he was really asleep, so I took the other kids to church, had a quick laugh with Darin and Brother Mecham and headed back home to retrieve Sean. As he woke up, I made a small change to his wardrobe (I took away the sweater vest), and he got dressed. He was still not wanting to go, and gave me every excuse he could think of: his arm hurt, his eye hurt, the kids in his class always sit by him and bug him, etc...and then we went anyway. I'm sorry to say my "happy mom" voice disappeared for a few brief seconds, and I walked into church with a child trying to recover from crying, and feeling like I had failed once again. He put the big church bag in between us so he didn't have to touch me, and gave me several looks that showed me he was less than pleased. I was forgiven after a little while when I played a game of hangman with him, and I hoped that I could someday make it so that we could be on time and happy. Keri had a similar Sunday, and came up with a great FHE object lesson that I stole. We made sundaes--a good sundae and a bad sundae. We put less than desirable toppings (mustard, ketchup, horseradish, a pickle, pepper, etc.) on the bad sundae, and talked about all the things that make a bad Sunday...including mom raising her voice, not cooperating, not having things ready, etc. Then we made a good sundae, and talked about what we could all do make our Sundays good. This sundae included strawberries, bananas, caramel, butterscotch, whipped cream, nuts, and brownies. I'm hoping it works (for them and me).