Mickey Mantle Goes to Church

G'pa Ohio had both Patrick and Eddie completely entranced when he would play with them.
We took Ed to see the local Christmas tree. While he fell asleep on the way there for want of a longer nap, once he woke up, he could be heard calling out, "ball, ball" and pointing to the trees.

Now to the title...we took Ed to church yesterday. Everytime we go to church, We try and bring something to occupy him. We've tried books--both board books, which land with a thud and cloth books, which are filled with things to make crinkly noises. While he used to be content to look at the books, now he yells loudly--or what seems loud in a quiet church-full of people about what he sees in the books. And he knows something on each page. We've tried beads that at home transfix him as he pulls and pushes them together. At church they become rocket propelled pieces of plastic.

We feel like we play defense sitting in church, guarding as best we can against the moment he is going to launch whatever toy we've brought. Nobody typically seems to care, and Den removes Ed, usually after about 25 min. and takes him outside when he just can't sit still (this church doesn't have a cry room or even atrium to visit). This last time we brought some foam blocks in addition to the usual assortment of books. He started throwing the blocks over the next pew pretty quickly, but we were able to divert him for a while--until he started tossing them to the older gentleman behind us. Again, fortunately they were foam, but we had to nip that behavior. The old man commented on Ed being a budding Mickey Mantle. Then, when Ed started flirting with him, he said, 'and you've got a ham too'.

So I'm really interested in what are good "church" toys, when every single one becomes a projectile? Den thought we should tether some toys and see how that worked. You would think that with the standing and sitting and singing, he would do better, especially since he does so well on airplane, but unfortunately it doesn't translate.