Palm Sunday

This is the first time we've been at our church on Palm Sunday, and this year it is also Children's Sunday. We dropped Dennis off at his class, and I checked on him between Sunday School and the service to find him doing just fine and lining up with his class to get ready to go up to the special children's service (called 'Splash' for some reason I cannot fathom). During the service, we heard much commotion in the vestibule and remembered that we'd heard the children would be carrying palm fronds and marching around the sanctuary. I tried to get Dennis in on this during the practice, but they told me he'd have to wait to be promoted to the older class. This is before he promoted himself last week. We didn't know if we'd see him in the service or not, and David kept watch. When he saw the littlest children marching in last, we got excited, and sure enough, there was our little guy marching in line with his own palm frond. We were disgustingly proud of how cute he looked. He took a wrong turn at the choir loft and was headed out the door until the teacher pointed out the right direction, and soon he was coming down the aisle toward us. I waved and he got so excited that he climbed up on the pew in front of us to tell me "look, Mommy, I got a palm leaf and I'm waving it!". I asked him if he was having fun and he nodded hugely; I told him we'd see him after church. All the children except the youngest class (his) stayed for the service and sat together in the center. When we went afterward to pick him up, he had cleaned up his toys, had behaved very nicely, and had colored his own palm leaf. He told us he learned about Jesus and his donkey today, and he was ready to go play outside, he said.

Today was Papa's birthday, and Granny left after lunch to get home to go and visit the cemetery today. In his honor, we planted our container garden today, 10 tomato plants, banana peppers, strawberries, and a cayenne pepper plant. We also started seeds for carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, bell peppers, and cilantro. I had intended for Dennis to help with the planting, but David gathered all the supplies and was ready to start while Dennis was taking his nap. He missed the initial planting, but the pots are all outside his window, and I showed him when he woke up. He said "now I can watch our food grow!". I will let him water them and help me transplant the seeds when the time comes.

Tonight he played outside with his Daddy while Gran and I walked our now habitual five miles at the track. He drove his Jeep around and 'put out fires' (David said he was told he was on fire a number of times but was rescued by Fireman Dennis), and then he slid down his fireman pole. It was a good Dennis day, really a good day for all of us.