She's Furious.

Those are the words we heard this morning at 11:30 a.m. as we walked down the Sunday school hall to pick up our screaming daughter. We had been paged during the church service. "Please come" the pager said.

We could hear Annabelle screaming as we turned the corner. I, of course, faulted myself for leaving her in the first place after I had seen her crying after we had signed her in. She didn't see us (that I know of), but we saw her screaming for "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Hubby said, "She'll be fine. She'll calm down in just a few minutes, and they'll call us if they need us."

They must have been at their wits end to call us. As we turned down the hall to go and pick Annabelle up, I heard one of the young girls say, "I just paged her mother."

As we walked down the hall, we got looks from another Daddy. He looked in disbelief. It wasn't a rude look, but just a quite shocked look.

Of course, Annabelle isn't used to her Mommy and Daddy leaving her, and I made the mistake of giving her that last hug before I left her. I should have just walked away as she clinged to me before we walked out (since I had given her that last hug). She wasn't screaming when we actually walked out of the room, but when we realized that we had completely forgotten to sign her in and get a pager, I heard and saw her screaming as I signed her in. It is a good thing we remembered to sign her in or the preacher may have announced for Annabelle's parents to come to the nursery immediately. How embarrassing that would have been!

I still don't know her frustrations exactly. I, personally, don't think she wants to go to church as she finds some "excuse" every week. Last week, she woke up coughing, and she had a runny nose.

This week, I think she honestly still did not feel well. However, if you know me, you'll know that I am one of those parents who refuses to expose my sick child to other healthy children, even if she isn't running a fever. This morning, she woke up coughing again with a runny nose, but I had come to the conclusion that it is just allergies since she's had it for over a week, and the discharge from her nose has been completely clear. And, she hasn't been running a fever. However, she is obviously very miserable.

Let's just all pray that my "furious" child will allow us to go to church again. We really need to find a church home! And, today didn't help the situation!

Did I mention that hubby said that all of the other children in the nursery were staring at her like "What is wrong with her?" Since the one girl said that Annabelle was "furious," I can only suspect that she showed her attitude by pushing them away, while still screaming, and saying "NO!" I think that could only explain why she was standing in the corner of the nursery all by her lonesome self when I picked her up. She was holding "teddy," but she immediately asked for her paci. The poor girl said, "Oh, I didn't know her paci was in the bag." And, she wouldn't have either. I never told her because Annabelle normally doesn't need it when she's around other children.

She told us that she was fine for 10 to 15 minutes until another Mommy picked up their child, and then it was as if Annabelle realized there was something wrong with this situation since her Mommy wasn't picking her up. And, it was all down hill from there. However, I don't think it was truly 10 to 15 minutes, as we weren't even down the hall by 1 to 2 minutes (when we realized we had forgotten the pager) before Annabelle started screaming. Maybe she didn't realize it was only 1 to 2 minutes, or maybe she was trying to make me feel better.

My poor baby probably screamed for 30-40 minutes, and it was all my fault! I should have made sure she was alright before we walked away the first time.

Next time, Daddy is going to drop her off. Every time her Daddy drops her off, she does fine.