Church for Curtis

Curtis had it easy. As opposed to Paige, he didn't have to worry about finding friends in our new ward because one of his school buddies lives in the neighborhood.

Church - Week 1

When it was time for primary, his buddy came over and whisked him off to class. When we saw Curtis afterword, he was all smiles--a rare occurrence for our grumpy little guy.

For Traci and me, this came as a huge sigh of relief. Curtis does not like change. When we were looking at new houses, he wouldn't even get out of the car because he was NOT GOING TO MOVE! 

Church - Week 4

It was Tate's turn to say the opening prayer and Traci and I were in the primary room to watch. From the back of the room, I could hear one member of the primary presidency say to another, "Whisper, whisper, Curtis Sutherland, whisper, whisper."

Uh-oh.

Tate said the prayer and Traci and I stood up to leave, when Curtis was escorted into the room, followed by the woman from the presidency. She brought him up to the front of the primary and said, "This is Curtis. We actually put him in the wrong class. He was in CTR 8, when he should have been in CTR 7. Whoops. That means he'll be here in the Junior primary, instead of the Senior primary."

Uh-oh.

Church classes are assigned by age, based on a calendar year--not a school year. His friend has a September birthday, but Curtis' birthday isn't until April. To make things worse, the junior primary goes through age seven, so not only would Curtis be leaving his friend's class, he'd be dropping out of the senior primary entirely.

Traci and I walked over to him after he took a seat by his new class.

"Hey, buddy. Are you okay?"

He looked up at me with big tears welling up in his eyes.

"No," he said quietly.

Which kind of broke our hearts.

--

After church, I was expecting to see a similarly downtrodden Curtis. I was shocked by what I saw.

A happy boy.

"I'm the tallest kid in the whole junior primary!" he said.

And that was that.