At our church we have a potluck the first Sunday of each month.

Elisha will be six months old this week, and for the first time since before he was born I brought something substantial and homemade. (I was very proud of myself).

Natasha asked that morning (yesterday) what I was making food for.
“For the potluck,” I told her.
“Mom,” she said (in the voice she uses when I tell her carrots are purple), “It’s potluck: the foods at the church today!”

So we talked about where the food comes from. Reminded me how long it’s been since I participated in the bringing.

~~~

After eating, a number of the men went out and started a pretty impressive fire to burn the brush that’s been cleared as part of the building project over the last however long. It had been announced in advance, and the kids were encouraged to go roast marshmallows and stuff.

I was inside talking with one of the other women when Jay brought Melody in. Her bare hands were *red* from the cold and they, along with her face and the front of her coat, were sticky with marshmallow guts.

Melody did not like how they felt.

I helped her out of her things (Jay returned to hauling brush to the fire), and held her until she felt comforted. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to cut off the conversation to go clean her up, or just keep her close till it was done (do you ever have those times when you wonder if it’s supposed to be over?), when she wandered off and her Sunday school teacher saw her sticky hands.

Melody was promptly scooped up and hauled off the the kitchen to get clean.

I enjoy the pack of puppies all our many church toddlers/kids are, and how all the grown-ups just help where they see a need. It feels so comfortable.

~~~

Natasha came charging in, soon after this, her face lit up, her hands almost as red and her coat much less sticky.

“I got to burn a marshmallo Mama!” She was *so* excited. “And then I got to eat it!”

~~~

After they came back inside, all three of the little girls still there worked their way upstairs, and the next we saw them they were singing on the stage. Natasha had found the old microphone I used to use (now without a cord) and was leaning left and right as she and Lily sang a song from Sunday school, combining the alphabet with the normal lyrics you hear in Sunday school.

It took me a minute to realize it was an actual song (they both knew the words) and not one they made up there on the stage.

Melody sat on the chair behind them, next to the hand drum, accompanying the other girls and singing some herself. When they saw me in the back, I was invited to sit down and sing with them.

“That’s what you do in church,” Natasha told me.