Aiden's First Christmas Performance

So we showed up to church this morning (only our second visit to this particular church) and proceeded to the nursery/toddler's area to drop our the kiddos. Kate took care of Nugget (aka Kai) and I walked Aiden to his room. Now before we even got to church, we knew this Sunday had the potential for problems. Aiden had finally decided that he would give in to our repeated attempts at potty training, so all of last week we have been working with him. Today, we decided that it would be a good test if we allowed him to go to church wearing "big boy undies".

As I entered the toddler's room to drop off Aiden, I hung up his bag, he ran off to play with some trucks in the corner and I walked over to the teachers to explain our potty training situation. I was slightly stressed that they wouldn't be too keen on "helping the new kid go pee" but they were cool about it so my stress subsided. It subsided just long enough for me to get my hand on the exit door knob before it sky-rocketed.

"We have our children's Christmas program this morning, so we'll be bringing the kids into the main service to sing a little bit later."

Mild shock set in, and my response sounded something like this: "Oh wow.....good luck!" Then I left the room. Looking back, I guess I could have asked some questions about the program, told Aiden to behave, or even asked the teachers if they wanted me to keep Aiden until after the program, but I didn't. I just left.

I met Kate on her way out of the nursery and told her the news. She slipped slightly, but I'll blame the partially frozen handicap ramp we happened to be traversing at the time. We found a seat in the main auditorium, and immediately started to discuss how things were about to go down.

Kate: Oh my gosh, I hope he doesn't flip out on stage!
Me: He's going to do that "flop-onto-his-back" thing he does when he meets new people.
Kate: Either that or he'll give them the, "NO! DON'T TELL ME..." fit.
Me: Oh my gosh, he's going to be the kid with the big PEE STAIN!
Kate: Ooooh! If I knew this was going to happen, I would have put a Pull-up on him!
Me: Kate...there is a drum set on stage.
Kate: You need to be ready to go up there and get him.

Now, all this probably wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't only the SECOND TIME we had ever been to this church. I was positive we were about to become a story about "that family that only came twice and their kid flipped out and peed himself on stage during the children's Christmas program."

In the next twenty minutes, which seemed like two hours, our hearts must have beat a combined 4,000 times. The congregational singing finally ended, and we all took our seats and watched as the children started to file in. A stream of Christmas dresses, khakis and GAP Kids button-up shirts instantly made me wish we hadn't let Aiden pick out his outfit, the centerpiece of which was a bright blue race-car shirt. O...M...G.

The first group of well-dressed children ended up being the older kid's class. They sang the first three songs, which were all quite cute. At the third song's conclusion, a second, shorter group of kids started to file in. They were all wearing foam crowns and holding onto a rope anchored at each end by a teacher. They were just as dressed-up as the first group, with one exception. Bringing up the rear was Aiden. My heart-dropped as I assumed he had been placed closest to the teacher due to backstage shinanigans, but he was holding onto the rope, walking slowly and with his head full of amazing curls, definitely rockin' the crown harder than the other kids. (Full disclosure: author is child's biased father) A second glance revealed that his pants were still dry and the race-car shirt was not as bright of a blue as I thought. So far, so good. Somewhere towards the front of the conga line, a couple kids started to cry. Kate and I smiled at each other victoriously. Our kid was not the first to melt-down.

As they filed onto the stage to their places in front of the older kids, Aiden's behavior didn't stick out at all. He was doing great. As the first music for the first song ("we fall down, we lay our crowns, at the feeeeeeet of Jesus") started, Aiden's head jerked towards the speakers, then towards the mass of kids standing behind him. He looked slightly bewildered as everyone started singing, and his response was to turn back towards the front and exclaim "Teacher, they're singing!" Chuckles broke out from various places in the auditorium, but they were "aw cute" chuckles so it was cool. When they got to a certain point in the song, the younger kids started to take off their crowns and put them in a manger at the front of the stage. When it was Aiden's turn, he took it off and just dropped it in front of him. More chuckles, still cool though.

They sang one more song, and apart from an instance where Aiden tried to show the teacher something on his hand, and a near "flop-onto-his-back" episode when he spotted Kate and me in the audience, everything went great. He stopped by our pew for a hug on his way back to the toddler room, and that was that. Crisis averted! Our heart rates settled back down to normal about halfway through the message, and we realized we were stupid for panicking. We have a pretty great kid.

And that's the story! Since we weren't expecting any kind of performance, we didn't get pictures or a video, so hopefully this painted a good enough picture of Aiden's first, impromptu, Christmas performance.

Peace! (on Earth, goodwill to men.)