This has always been one of my dad's favorite quotes, and we really felt it on Sunday. We were finally released from Nursery; we had been serving there our whole marriage- 15 months so far. It's a long time to have a calling, it's a long time to be with crying, slobbering, diper-dirtying babies, it's a long time to be taking care of other people's kids when you'd really like to have one of your own. It had been suggested that we ask to be released, but I wouldn't go that far. But this past Sunday, they released us. We celebrated by wearing church clothes that we normally can't wear to nursery: Bryan wore a suitcoat and I wore a wrap dress with high heels. We even brought our scriptures to church! After Sacrament meeting we turned in our tithing and asked where the Sunday School class was. It had moved since we were there last! Everyone congratulated us on our accomplishment of getting released. We were surprised that so many people knew who we were! We sat down in Sunday school but only a minute or two went by before the nursery coordinator tapped us on the shoulder. Apparently, whoever the new nursery leaders are didn't know that they started that day, so she came to ask us back for one more Sunday. Of course, we went back. How do you say no to that?
We went back to the nursery room and a couple of the parents were still in there, waiting for leaders before they could drop their kids and scramble for the door. One boy's mom said, "Oh, good, you're here. Now he'll stay in the room," and then she left. Apparently, when the little boy got to nursery and saw that we weren't there, he ran out the door and back down the hallway saying, "Let's go home!" But once we got there, he was fine and his parents could leave.
Another little boy started crying as his mother tried to peel him off of her shoulder to put him down so she could go. I took him from her and he cuddled into my shoulder. The mom left, and I guess she told the dad to go check on him because he came in. He asked his son if he was okay and held out his hands for the boy to go to him, but he stayed snuggled on my shoulder. The dad was surprised: "He's never done that for anyone but me and his mom!" The little guy rested on my shoulder and sort-of slept for about half an hour then got down to play and was fine. That was when the quote from Charles Dickens came to mind. We might have been ready to be released, but it didn't seem like the babies were ready to let us go.
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