easter sunday with the cooper five plus two

first off, let me just say that all of you who came out of the cooper five closet and posted should be proud of yourselves. hold a parade, take a day off work, throw a protest at some mormon temple to show your cooper five pride. we made it to net double digit comments with megan appropriately capping it all off with comment to put us over the top. see what we are capable of? let me just say i have never been prouder of you, zombies.

for those of you who didn't post, you really should have... if for nothing else, than for my mother. she's a sweet aging lady who thinks i'm the greatest semiprofessional blogger ever. let's help perpetuate that myth. just picture yourself as a parent, checking the internet every day to read your son's blog in hopes that the world has discovered his genius only to find single digit comments. this is something no parent should ever have to go through.

now for a quick recap of easter sunday with the cooper five... and by quick, i mean my version of quick.

sunday morning: we all get up and have aim's tasty german pancakes. i always thought eggs would make a great easter breakfast, there's some delicious irony there.

church starts at one which means that should leave plenty of time for a family of five to get in their sunday best, comb their hair, brush their teeth, and still make it to church on time. not bloody likely for the likes of us. actually, we were on time for church on sunday but late for the appointment that aim had with a member of the bishopric before church. choose your battles.

before one o' clock: we get the kids ready. they look awfully dapper. we make the mistake of letting the kids out in the garage on their own. aim goes into the garage and finds them. aim comes back in from the garage to keep from strangling them. car tires and white shirts don't mix well together. all is not lost, it was just colston who got dirty. two out of three... we'll take it.

on the way to church aim reminds me that we will have two additional little boys with us during sacrament meeting because their parents are speaking and they needed someone to keep an eye on their kids. one of the boys is two and the other is 9 months. i fear for all of our safety.

we arrive at church. i let jameson and caleb out of the car and, as sternly as i can, exhort the lads to behave better than they ever have before (not hard to do) or else there would be dire consequences. jameson sensing the hollowness of my threat and probably just curious to see what "dire consequences" meant exactly replied "oh yeah, like what?" doh. i hate it when he does that. shouldn't my initial threat have been enough to frighten him into blind obedient submission? i hadn't actually thought far enough ahead to come up with detailed dire consequences.

what's that passing me by? oh, that's my street cred with the boys.

we enter the chapel and find a seat half way up on the cushioned benches. best seats we've had all year. boys are starting to bounce around like unstable molecules... i have a bad feeling about this. aim comes back from her meeting with the bishopric member. she's not crying. this is a good sign.

church is about to start. the speaking parents show up with their two boys. aimee would have said they looked pretty cute (see how i did that? review prior post on the word "cute" to understand). the smallest one stays in his carseat. he must sense this is going to be a wild ride. the older one takes a seat next to me. i think he's about to cry. he doesn't cry. i put out my hand to get a high five from him. nothing.

sacrament meeting starts. so far, surprisingly good. this has to be the calm before the storm. caleb starts to vibrate... here it comes. he walks over to me and asks while looking at the older of the two boys we are now watching, "why isn't he moving?" well, son, what you might take for paralysis is actually more commonly referred to as "reverence." as foreign as this concept may be to our children, it's encouraging to see that not all kids are adverse to sitting still. of course, there is always the possibility that the boy was scared stiff. i put my hand out again hoping to break some of the tension by getting a five. nothing still.

the younger one starts to cry. i think to myself it must be the pink blanket he's wrapped in. note to self: make joke about pink blanket in blog... see how immature and insensitive i can be about certain things like the color pink while not thinking twice about pedicures, shopping for female clothing, blogging or decorating? hypocrisy is the word i believe you are searching for.

aim picks up the little one and holds him. the little one spits up. aim doesn't notice, but megan (yes, that megan) is sitting behind us and points it out to aimee. "it must be the pink blanket," aim says. "there goes my joke" i think to myself. not as original as i thought. see how insensitive aim can be about the color pink? the little one calms down. the older one now wants to go up on the stand with his parents. i try to hold him back without being too rough for fear of a lawsuit. i put out my hand for a high-five yet again. still nothing.

jameson and caleb are being irreverent. this isn't noteworthy as it is commonplace during church every sunday. however, i turn to jameson and, again, very sternly tell him to knock it off in the best "i meant it" impersonation i can conjure up within the chapel during sacrament meeting. it is important to note that i have become quite adept at mouthing things as a disguised whisper, but is really more of a yell based on the perfect combination of the facial expressions and mick jagger like lip contortions i extol. jameson, getting the picture, tries to defend himself and shift blame to caleb by doing the same, however, seeing as how he does not have the years of experience i've had in "whisper yelling", his mouthing motions resemble more of a bad cross between an amateur street mime and a pokemon character than a seasoned "whisper yell". entertaining, yet ineffective.

jameson makes his way over to the parental guidance to see what's happening on that side of the bench. he notices the younger one and asks, "why does he have a pink blanket?" this coming from a kid who bought himself some sweet turquoise necklace thing at the ward auction two years back. let it go cooper five, it's just a pink blanket for crying out loud. flippin' pinkaphobes.

things start to heat up again. aim and i switch kids. i stick my hand out for a final attempt at getting a five. i get one. nice. sacrament meeting ends. it was eventful. it was meaningful. the talks were great. the mood was what it should have been. all was well that ended well.

on a side note, coincidentally, aim and i decided to hold off on kid number four a little longer. just kidding. maybe.

all in all, the kids were very well behaved. we enjoyed changing things up a little and we're glad that the parents of the kids felt comfortable asking us to help out. anytime, my friends. anytime.