My daughter Hadley is officially a Sunbeam. For those not in Mormon circles, this is the first class children enter in Primary (the children’s organization). It is a fun rite-of-passage to finally be with all the big kids and there was even a song written for them: “Jesus wants me for a sunBEAM.” Each time the kids repeat “BEAM” they obnoxiously pop out of their chairs. I am not sure who instigated the actions behind it.
Evidently the same person who invented the hot potato game.
Jamie stayed home with sick Bode last Sunday so it was just Hadley and I driving to church. I figured it would be appropriate to have a heartfelt mommy-daughter talk about Sunbeams and the theme in Primary this year: I am a Child of God.
I would like to say my intentions were to enrich her spiritually, which would be partly true. But mostly, I just wanted her to be a Sunbeam child prodigy and know all the answers her first day of class.
Because I am competitive like that.
I started with the pre-mortal existence and explained that we believe we lived in a pre-existent state before we came to earth. From there, we talked about coming to earth, gaining a body and our families.
I should have just stopped there. But making her a Sunbeam child prodigy just kept gnawing away at me so I decided to go for the whole gambit: what we refer to as The Plan of Salvation. This essentially covers where we came from, why we are here and where we are going. Because doesn’t every three year old need to know this?
And so we talked about death and heaven. Initially, she was intrigued and asked how people die. I expounded a bit and patted myself on the back that she was actually taking it all in.
Until the time came to get out of the car when she became unglued.
“I don’t want to goooooooooooo!”
“What? Why not? You’re going to be a Sunbeam today!”
“But I don’t want to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Not quite how I had envisioned our mommy-daughter bonding session.
Topic of our next discussion: Keep the commandments. Or else.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 