Best part of Sundays? Funny 4-year-old friends

We look forward to Sunday afternoons all week. Why? We teach the 4- and 5-year-old Primary class. Cute and candid, they've won us over - we LOVE spending time with them, chaos and all.

Anywhere from five to 11 kids show up depending on the Sunday, and every week we get HILARIOUS quotes to tide us over 'til we see our little rascals again. Some favorites so far:

Everyone coloring pictures, and Ryan uses a purple crayon.Disobeying "color gender laws" at their age is apparently cause for ridicule and quick correction.
Summer: (emphatically) You can't use that color, teacher.
Ryan: Why not?
Summer: That's GIRLISS, not BOYISS.
Danielle: Yeah, that's too GIRLISS for you.

Preston, sitting by darling Maddy, looks up at me innocently:
Preston: I'm not gonna kiss her, cause I'm not allowed to.
Crystalee: That's good, Preston. Let's not do that.
Preston: But when I grow up, I can marry her. (Maddy blushes profusely)


To act out examples of how to CTR, I brought props. I gave one boy a box of tissues.
Crystalee: Ok, class, we're pretending James is sick. How could we help if he's sick?
Preston: Give him medicine.
Crystalee: That's a good idea. What's something nice we could say to him?
Preston: (thinking about it, then confident) Do you want some medicine?

In the big Primary group, the Sharing Time teacher holds up a picture of President Thomas S. Monson.
Teacher: Who is this?
Thomas: (shouts out) THOMAS the PROPHET! (mumbles to himself) And there's Thomas the TRAIN, too.

Another Meaning for 'CTR'

In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we're apparently huge fans of acronyms. If you're a Mormon, you'll recognize these. If not, here's a 101:

BYC = Bishop's Youth Council

D&C = Doctrine & Covenants

CTR = Choose the Right

EFY = Especially for Youth

LDS = Latter-day Saint

MTC = Missionary Training Center

RM = Return Missionary

VT = Visiting Teacher

YM/YW = Young Men/Young Women

YSA = Young Single Adult

It seems every English-speaking Mormon kid, from the time they recognize letters is taught that "CTR" stands for "Choose the Right."

This year, we're teaching a group of rowdy (but adorable) 4-5 year olds in Primary, and started off the new year giving them CTR rings. They were a hit, and a better enticement to sit still than anything else we could come up with. It will be interesting to see how many of them actually still have their rings a week later...

In our home, there's an extra meaning for "CTR." Ryan told me when we were dating it stands for CHOOSE THE RYAN. Obviously, I believed him.