We're following the leader, whoever it may be

At 15 months, Rachel is quite the leader. She gets to go into nursery for the last block of church because I go into nursery the last block of church so it just makes sense. She really pulls her own weight in there, even though Lu'ai insists that she is still a baby. He should talk. He's only two (and-a-half).

Today we were coloring pictures and Rachel started banging her crayon on the paper to make little dots. It's one of her artistic trademarks. She thinks it's great fun because it's noisy and it makes little dots.

Slowly the other children started joining in. First Sam and then Lu'ai. Their racket even got Robby interested in colouring--and he never colours. It took me quite a while to convince them that they should all colour softly at church.

I thought it was funny that all these "big" boys were following the lead of "baby" Rachel.

Earlier, though, the tables were turned and it was Rachel who was following the example of the older boys.

Sam had agreed to say the prayer for us and everyone got ready for prayer (except for Robby--he spends most of his time rolling around on the floor). I started saying the prayer slowly for him to repeat, but he was too embarassed to say anything until the very end.

"In the name of Jesus Christ," I said.

"Amen!" Sam yelled.

Not to be outdone, Lu'ai screamed even louder, "Ameeeen!!!"

Rachel looked at Sam. She looked at Lu'ai. She looked at me. She took a deep breath.

"Aaaahhhhhhhh!" she hollered, pounding on the table.

She can't really talk yet but she was definitely loudest of all.

Reverence is obviously very often the topic of our nursery lessons.