It happens once a year.

It’s inevitable. Like the Zombie Apocalypse. Only real.

I really didn’t feel good yesterday morning. I felt so bad, in fact, I debated ditching out of Church. I’m sorry but 9:00 AM is just too early to drag yourself out of bed, look presentable, and be somewhere when every joint is on fire and your busted up ankle and knees are threatening a revolt.

I just really didn’t want to miss partaking of the Sacrament, the bread and water that symbolizes Christ’s sacrifice for each of us. So what did I do? The dutiful thing. After dragging my carcass out of bed, slapping on a variety of braces, and finding the first skirt my hands reached, I packed the boys into my Journey and headed out.

We even made it on time. Go us.

I parked myself on the sofa in the foyer and propped up the whiney ankle and settled in. Only then did I realize – it was Primary Program Sunday.

I groaned. This could mean only one thing.

Epic levels of cuteness.

And there was no way I could make it through the entire service in the chapel with the whiney ankle.

Not that you NEED to see the plethora of children, ages 3-11 to go into cute overload. It just makes it all the better.

So what is the Primary Program? Let me start by telling you what Primary is. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we live for the 18 month age for our babies. Then we can unceremoniously dump them in the nursery and not have to worry about them crawling away during Sunday School or Relief Society. (I’d say the men’s meeting, but really, you don’t have to be LDS to know those cute babies are going with mama to the women’s meeting.)

At age 3, they enter Primary. Primary is the children’s church and it takes place during the Sunday School and women/men’s meetings.  The children have their own Sunday School, presumably watered down Gospel to their level. (Ozma uses big words and I’m fairly sure that’s not kosher.) Then they gather together for singing and um, well I don’t know what else. Mostly I hear the singing.

Really cute singing. They are children. Singing. Need I say more?

That is primary. Mostly it is a place I avoid because I have a serious allergy to little kids in large numbers. FYI: large numbers = any number greater than two. Kids are cute, but I just never learned how to relate to them. I mentioned the big words thing. And to that one kid that barked for an hour one time when I subbed… well I never did figure out what was wrong with that one. Maybe his parents were werewolves.

I love kids. Just I love them more when there is only one to deal with.  My kids? They were raised by me and thus, well if you’ve met my kids you would understand. Especially when they were actually little kids.

I digress. Now on to the program. This once a year event entails the entire Primary taking over the main service. We pray, we sing, we take Sacrament. And then the Bishopric skeedaddle, presumably to sit with their wives and glory in not being stared at by the entire congregation. The kids file to the front and Cute Overload Commences.

Here are the things I always look for:

• The spinning kid. Without fail one kid feels the need to spin like a top. I don’t know why. It’s like an unwritten law. And it is cute, unless it is your kid.
• The waving kid. Come on, he or she is at the front and they spy their gramma in to watch just them. So they wave. And wave. And then they jump up and down and wave.
• The kid that has no idea what’s going on. Generally this is a child of one of the most active families in the congregation. You know he’s been to every practice, his parents have played the music CD for hours a day so he has this music mastered, and he’s probably able to recite his speaking part in his sleep in 8 languages. But for whatever reason unknown to anyone – he has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what is going on. So he is singing the wrong song. (Or maybe he’s singing it in Tagalog because his father served a Tagalog speaking mission.) Or he misses his entire class going to the microphone. You know his parents are ready to die, but for whatever reason this is supreme cuteness.

Heavenly Father restored the Gospel because He could.

What does the prophet do?

He wears a tie!

He talks to us on TV!