Hunger Games

Ruth is refusing to eat.

It began on Sunday, when I (as I always do, because I believe fully in the feasting aspect of Easter!) let the girls eat candy out of their baskets before breakfast.

Ruth is kind of a choco-holic.  I mean, she really really loves chocolate.  When I make chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins, she very carefully mines out all of the chocolate chips and eats them, then throws the rest of the muffin on the floor.  I switched to those tiny little mini-chocolate chips in an effort to thwart her, but she has her pincher grip down pretty good and just takes the extra time to excavate those teeny little nuggets of chocolate.

So now that she knows there is chocolate in the house, she is refusing to eat anything else.  On Easter, she refused the delicious ham, homemade bread rolls, marshmallow fruit salad and candied carrots that her Grandma had so lovingly set out.  At home she has refused oatmeal (with chocolate chips, no less, because I'm getting desperate!), bananas, grapes, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches:  all of her favorite foods are being laid  before her, and she is stubbornly resisting it all. 

If any of the girls foolishly leave a basket laying around we can be sure to find Ruth, with a stealthy silence that would amaze an elf, carefully picking out and unwrapping chocolate eggs. 

If I had more time, or was a better writer (or maybe a better mother) I would find some way to connect this to the tendency we all struggle against, to pass over the joys laid before us in our anxiety to reach for some other good that exists only in imagination.  Or something like that. 

Instead, I am going to use the remainder of bath-time (the one time of day, aside from glorious nap-time, when I can do stuff around the house unhindered) to hunt down and hide every last trace of chocolate.  And I am going to hope that eventually Ruth's need for real food will overpower her disordered desire for chocolate, and she will again be in a position to appreciate the feast set before her. 

I believe the technical term for recognizing the value of what is in front of you is virtue. 

Feasting is awesome, but you ruin it when what you're pining for is not what you've been given but the one you've set your heart on.  Or something like that.

Evangelizing

We were not having a great morning.

Ruth woke up at 6am and then refused to take a nap, despite her weary red eyes and body-racking yawns.  The older girls had been told to straighten up the top floor, but the situation up there quickly devolved into an unacceptable atmosphere.  Things were confiscated, tears were shed, wails were wailed.

Add to this attractive scenario a front yard that is also devolving, due to the weeds which clearly have a personal vendetta against us and an overflowing recycling bin.  It's been....I can't even remember, weeks?  since we remembered to set the stupid bin out, so it is now more a mountain of trash than an identifiable bin.  I have multiple secondary boxes that I keep in the kitchen, but I tend to keep the milk jugs (which are sealable) and other contained, non-sticky stuff in those while the beer bottles still get tossed outside in the overflowing bin.  In other words, if you looked at our recycling bin right now (which isn't even an official recycling bin, it's just a blue plastic container with a big X duct-taped on the side) we totally look like alcoholics. 

So, to recap:  cranky, exhausted-eyed baby, wailing and crying from upstairs, and a mountain of beer bottles by the front door.  This is the morning the Mormons decide to drop in.

I, being upstairs amidst the crying and wailing, actually missed it.  Chris answered the door, trashy baby in hand, and politely (over the sounds of torture from directly overhead) let the women know that we are already a praying sort of family and that now (you know, with all the screaming) was not really a good time to discuss things further.

The women left without exactly making it clear whether they will be returning or not, but when Chris told me all this I had to wonder:  did they guess we are Catholic?

I kind of hope not.

Magic Daddy

I've just hurt my leg exercising, so while I sit at the computer holding a squirmy baby and icing my calf I might as well put up a story on here that I've been meaning to tell.

On Good Friday, we were all in the car on the way to see Katie in our parish's Passion Play.  Lucy was in a talkative mode, so Chris was egging her on by asking her various random questions.

"Do you know what I do when I'm at work?" he asked her.

This has proven to be a nebulous concept for the girls over the years.  When Katie was in kindergarten she told her teacher that Chris was "kind of a nurse."  The other girls tend to just shrug and say, "he helps doctors somehow."

Lucy, however, did not hesitate.  In her decisive and prompt way she immediately answered, "You bring people back alive."

When people ask me if it bothers Chris that he doesn't have any sons, I always just shake my head.  They totally don't get it.  He may not have someone to arm wrestle, but he has six little girls who adore the ground he walks on.  He is absolutely and without rival their hero.

I mean, when I say they believe he can raise the dead, I am saying that quite literally.

Shut eye

The sleeping-all-through-the-night dream is dead.

I shouldn't complain too much since Ruth usually only wakes up once, but she maximizes the torture by taking a solid hour to two hours to go back to sleep, and often by that time it isn't worth it for me to go back to bed before Katie needs to get up.  I've regressed back into my Rip Van Winkle ways;  if Chris gets up with the girls, or gets home early so that I can take a nap, I am quite literally dead to the world until somebody comes and physically wakes me up.  I've lost the ability to wake up on my own.

The funny thing though is that, unlike the previous five times I've done this, all this sleep deprivation has not sucked out my will to live.  I'm one of those people who really, really needs sleep and lots of it and that's not a trait that jives all that well with raising six kids.  All flippancy aside, it has been a serious cross of mine for the past 11 years and one that has often left me in almost total despair.  Imagine my surprise, then, when suddenly here I am, getting very little sleep, and I feel....just fine.  Tired but otherwise okay, happy even.

How funny that the answer to my desperate prayers for more sleep are answered, not by getting more sleep, and not by needing less, but by....just not minding it so much.  Can't explain it, but I'm not going to complain!  It seems best to me to just accept it gratefully when a little mercy is thrown my way, in a way that I would never have thought was possible.

A bunch of stuff...

1.
Our van is dead.  Actually, it's more mostly dead, but it will cost more than it is worth to fix it. This is devastating to me.  I know that we are in the market for a school bus anyway, and I know the old van is a filthy, banged-up, outdated, and did I mention filthy? jalopy but....I loved it.  In light of the monster we are about to buy, it looks sleek and.....really easy to park.  I had hoped to spend many a school day tooling around in the old "dusty camel" as it is affectionately called.  (The nickname comes from the time we were heckled about our unkempt car.....by churchmen hosting a drive-thru nativity.) It makes me sadder than is maybe reasonable to think about putting the Dusty Camel to sleep....

2.
We are in the market for a 12 passenger van.  This is deeply unexciting to me.  I am terrified of the logistics of driving such a gigantic van. The cost of the gas alone is enough to make my knees shake.  Plus, you know, I'm not exactly a stylish-car kind of gal, but I never quite pictured myself at the helm of an industrial vehicle.  On the plus side, it will be nice to fit our entire family in one car!  And for the first time in about a gazillion years, we will have an extra space for anyone who would like to ride along with us. (And really, who won't want to be seen cruising in our party bus?)

3. We have not had a single illness-free week since Christmas.  Christmas!!!  Claire is on antibiotics now and I am hoping against hope that we are finally done.  I finally understand what drove poor Jasper to chew up the walls.  I'm about there, myself, these days.

4.  This is how our first day of Lent ended.  Very appropriate, let me tell you.  Full day of school + multiple illnesses/injuries + mass close to bedtime = ugly scene, indeed.

5.
Early this winter, I was in need of a hat for Ruth that wouldn't slip over her eyes but wouldn't cut off circulation on her big ol' bobblehead, and that would keep her head warm without making it too warm.  So one afternoon I knit one, and it has been her signature look ever since.  I put it on her the other day, after a while of not needing it, and :  whoa!  This baby is growing! 

The Violent Bear it Away

Overheard while playing with clay in the kitchen:
Lucy, "I need more red, Abbie.  I am making Jesus and it needs to be bloody because He is going to be dead."

Lucy at Mass

Lucy to Chris after the Consecration:  There it is!  Look!  The creepy bread that has Jesus in it!

7 quick takes from a big fat hypocrite

I am a hypocrite for two reasons here. #1, I am about to list my seven favorite forms of devotion as though I am actually in the habit of practicing these forms of devotion. #2, I always scoff at the idea of being an actual "blogger" both because I frequently go weeks where I forget to post stuff and also because...well, nobody reads this regularly (except my mom - thanks, Mom!) Chris will sometimes give me a hard time about being a Pretentious Blogger, but my defense is that I don't actually put work into my posts, I don't promote it, I haven't listed it anywhere, and I never participate in any blog-type networking.
Ah, until now, that is. I was surprised to find myself tagged by Simcha Fischer, who by the way has, like, the best blog going,* and now look at me - pleased as punch, figuring out links and things in my pathetic eagerness to impress the cool kids.

So without further ado, here are my 5 favorite forms of devotion, dovetailed into the 7 quick takes because I am not sure which one I was supposed to do:

---1---

The Rosary

I love the rosary, even though I often forget that fact and convince myself that it's too hard to say consistently. I'm pretty good about saying one a day while nursing babies who keep me pinned to the couch for half hour stretches, but I have a terrible tendency to fall out of the habit once the convenience is over. I find, though, that when I do say a rosary every day my perception of life in general is much better. Mark Shea, another Catholic writer I really like, said something a while ago about the rosary being a success story** that really hit home for me. I have inherited the pessimistic Irish gloom of my family, and it can be very easy for me to fall into the trap of thinking that the world is nothing but a vale of tears. The rosary is a way of re-living, over and over and over again, the reality that the vale of tears is really just a part of the story: ultimately good triumphs over evil and peace and joy actually prevail. That is so cool, it's hard to believe it's for real. And that, of course, is why it is good to say the rosary over and over and over. I need this beat into my head or I'm apt to forget it.

---2---
Adoration

Long ago, during my first semester in college, I accidentally signed up for adoration in the middle of the night. (I didn't notice that pesky little a.m. beside the 3.) It turned into one of my favorite things, though. Sitting in the quiet chapel, completely alone, made my time in front of the Eucharist feel very, very personal. Even when I fell asleep which, to my shame, I did more than once.

I think it was going to adoration that first drew my heart towards the Church. My mom used to take me to St. Paul's Monastery in Pittsburgh when I was very little, and I absolutely fell in love with kneeling in the semi-dark church, surrounded by flickering red candles and a peaceful quiet that can be found nowhere else. Now-a-days, though, it's just plain old hard to get there. Our parish has perpetual adoration on Fridays, but between school and nap schedules I've never found an available time-slot that we can make. Remembering my own lovely childhood experience, I take the girls once in a while for a "quick visit" where we stay for maybe 10 minutes, but I've found that staying an entire hour can be very taxing on the younger ones. Whenever I manage to get there for an hour myself, though -- I really do enjoy it. It's that peaceful quiet, it just gets me every time. Just yesterday, I spent the day at the Catholic Writer's conference, and they had set up a little adoration chapel. I found myself going in multiple times, and I reminded myself of the girls who often climb up beside Chris or me when we are sitting on the couch. They don't ask us to do anything; they just want to sit close to us, and when they feel ready they'll run back to whatever game they were playing. That's what adoration is like.

I need to make getting there more of a priority.

---3---
Confession

I hate going to confession. It's always inconvenient, it's awkward, and for some mysterious reason (because I am not always terribly sad) it makes me cry every single time, which leaves me feeling horribly conspicuous when I exit the confessional. However, it takes a huge load off. I always wish I hadn't suggested going on our way in, but I am always glad on our way out.

---4---
Praying for the dead

This is an a devotion I can actually claim to do consistently. Saying the "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord" prayer is something I automatically do whenever I pass a graveyard (and I live right down the street from one, so I at least say it a couple of times a day.)

I can't remember where I got the idea, but I say 5 Apostles Creeds, 1 Hail Holy Queen, and an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for friends, family, and people I feel compelled to pray for in purgatory every day (unless I forget to.) I like to take advantage of the whole Communion of Saints thing, and it's easier to make friends with the dead than it is with the irritating living. Does that make me seem psychotic? If you read the passage in The Brothers Karamazov where Fr. Zosimov talks about the importance of praying for those who have died each day, it makes it sound better.

---5---
Blessing my Family

This is another tradition that grew from something my mom did. (See, Mom? I did listen to you sometimes!) Every night before bed, I ask for a blessing on my house and each of member of my family. I used to make sort of a production out of it, naming all sorts of evils etc. that I wanted us to be protected from, but now I just ask Christ to give us the grace to love Him always, no matter what happens.

---6---
This one doesn't have a name

Long ago, I took a class by a wonderful priest named Fr. Mastroeni. He was an excellent teacher, but intimidating as hell. I would literally pray every morning before class that he wouldn't call on me, because to not answer perfectly brought a withering scorn like nothing you have ever seen. (Turns out, deep down Fr. Mastroeni was a big softie. When my friend Monica accidentally slept through our Final Exam, she faced him in tears, sure that he was going to fail her for the class. Instead, he let her take the exam later - in secret, because he didn't want to ruin his reputation as the hardest of hard-noses.) Anyway, he always began class with this prayer:

Direct O Lord all our actions, by your holy inspirations
and carry them on by your gracious assistance so
that every prayer and work of our may always begin from You
And by You be happily ended through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The girls and I say this prayer every morning. They don't feel like they've started the day properly without it. Thanks, Fr. Mastroeni!

---7---
Muttering and Sputtering

Remember when I said praying for the dead was the one I do most consistently? That's a lie. This is the "devotion" I am most consistent with. It boils down to me saying, throughout each day, things like, "I'm an idiot, God! Help me" or "help me to not dwell on this grievance," or "give me patience with this ridiculous kid!" Occasionally, I'll even manage something like, "thank you, God, for this sunset, or this sweet little girl, or this wonderful meal that my husband made for us and please-don't-let-me-get-irritated-with-the-mess-he-just-made-in-my-kitchen." A lot of times, I won't say coherent prayers at all, I'll just kind of....think about God, or sort of dwell on this or that thing that I read. I think this is what Peter Kreeft means when he talks about "practicing the presence of God," but I suspect Dr. Kreeft does it better than I do.

* I actually saw SinCity- in the theater!- and liked it, though.
** I spent forever looking for the quote about how the rosary is a success story, but for the life of me I can't find it. I am positive that I did not hallucinate it, though. It exists somewhere!

Also I can't figure out the linky thing, so here's just a plain ol' link to the blog that does the 7 quick takes, Conversion Diary, another one of my favorite blogs. I promised the girls milkshakes tonight, since I made them such a half-hearted dinner, and they are about to mutiny so I cannot spend any more time trying to figure this out!

Fun with Popery

One of the fun things about being raised Catholic is the opportunity it gives you to find some really twisted takes on life.

Case in point: My mom had a minor eye surgery this morning, and my sister called me later to let me know that she was out and on her way home.

"How does she look?" I asked.

There was a pause. Then Rachel said:

"You know those Mary statues that weep blood? She looks like that."

I immediately knew exactly what she meant, and if you grew up reading "The Wanderer" and stockpiling bottled water and blessed holy candles, you know exactly what she meant, too.

We may have been laughing, Mom, but at least you can be sure that we are praying as well.

Abbie, inventor of the today's most creative, and bizarre, heresies

So this happened during Lent, but I am just now getting around to telling you. It's worth the wait.

Abbie was in the kitchen, eating her second breakfast. (Abbie and Lucy think they are hobbits.)

The day previous, we had discussed Good Friday - what happened to Jesus, and what we would be doing in church on that day. I guess she had enough time to marinate the knowledge because she suddenly turned to me and said, "People wonder why Jesus is on that cross."

I said, "Some people might."

"Yeah," she continued, "So they can just ask Jesus, 'Hey! Why are you up there on that cross?' And he tells them, 'Well, this is where I died, so now I'm stuck up here.' "

Apocolypse???

We had a crazy hail storm this evening! It had been a gorgeous day: the girls spent most of the afternoon running around outside and enjoying the sunshine. Imagine our surprise when shortly after dinner the sun suddenly darkened and the sky quite literally opened up.

It sounded like we were being attacked by gumballs. I've never seen anything like it. One minute the weather was clear and the next minute we could barely see out the windows due to all the hail. We had to crate Jasper because I was afraid that he was going to crash out the window, he was that frantic.

So anyway, here are the pictures. Remember that for most of today it's been around 70 degrees! The storm lasted for maybe five minutes, and at the end of it our yard was white. I was about ready to break out the blessed candles! (3 Days of Darkness paranoia, anyone?)

Two Peas in a Pod

Lucy, who has been walking since before she was 9 months old, has taken to travelling on all fours again. The better to communicate with her new best friend, I guess..
Jasper declines his breakfast of dried-lamb in lieu of Cap'n Crunch, courtesy of Lucy's appalling table manners. (Note the chairs set in a circle around Lucy's high chair. I did that, thinking it might keep Jasper from reaching her. He's grown a lot more than I realized.)

Abbie leaves me speechless yet again

Maybe all this religious talk is an indication that she has a vocation to the religious life? Or maybe it's an indication that she is someday going to start some kind of scary cult. I wish I knew.

Claire asked me if she could sit on the stools at the counter for lunch. I thought about it for half a second but knowing that Abbie, who still lacks enough balance and coordination to sit unassisted on a high stool safely, would insist on climbing up there as well, I said, "no."

"Come on, Mom!" said Claire, "It's not a big deal!"
"Yeah!" Abbie chimed in, "It's not like when Jesus was stuck in a tree!"

Well, if by "tree" she meant "cross" - and I'm really hoping here that she did, then I guess she has a point. It's kind of hard to top crucifying God when you are classifying what is and is not a "big deal." Still, though, they sat at the regular table.

Why didn't I take that Scott Hahn course in college? Why???

We had another disturbing theological discussion in the car the other day. These are becoming more and more frequent as Claire and Abbie, for reasons unknown, have become increasingly curious about the workings of God.

For instance, Abbie was insisting that Jesus could fly. God can do whatever He wants, right? Well, then, of course He wanted to fly. She then began to play super-heroes with Claire, with Claire playing the Green Latern (the current fave) and Abbie playing......Flying Jesus.

Sigh.

So back to the car. We were driving along happily when Abbie began explaining how she knows that God loves her. He gave her a nice mommy and daddy. Good one, Abbie. He lets her have enough food to eat. Yes, that's true. Also, God made it so that she can now swallow her throw-up.

Uh....what?

Yup, Abbie used to throw up sometimes but now she can just swallow that throw-up down. God made her do that! Because He loves her! At first I was alarmed - was Abbie about to puke in the car? She assured me that she wasn't, though. She had just been thinking. About the relationship between vomit and God.

Sometimes these kids are so crazy that it actually scares me. Am I raising a bunch of pychopaths here? What do you say to something like this??? In this case, I sputtered a bit and then just muttered in defeat, "Uh, yeah...well, God certainly loves you, I know that for sure."

Here's hoping He loves me enough to ramp up the old brainpower as time goes on (and these comments become increasingly hard to handle!)

Chesterton and lilacs

I can't help but mention the lilacs again. I'm not by nature an exuberant kind of person, but I have been unreasonably, deliriously joyful these days and it is all due to the lilacs. They are so beautiful, and smell so much like heaven that I feel I can barely even stand it. They make everything good, if you can understand. Or maybe it's that they help me to feel the goodness that is already in everything, but often overlooked. In any case, all the sweet things in life are lately much, much sweeter.

My cousin Margie stopped by overnight, on her way to Ohio to see her family. It was great to see her - for one thing, I haven't had the chance to really talk to her in over 10 years, and she has two adorable kids I needed to get to know! For another thing, she has been living in Germany and she brought Milka! For anyone who has ever had Milka, no more needs to be said.

So between the lilacs and the family and the Milka, it's been a great morning.

After Margie left, I sat down to feed Lucy and flip through Gilbert Magazine while I drank my coffee. The coffee was better than usual, Lucy was cuter than she has ever been, and the magazine, while always great, was a delight. The subscription was a gift from my mom, and when I read this quote I laughed out loud. I've been devoted to CS Lewis for as long as I can remember, but I never knew much about Chesterton (other than that he wrote the Fr. Dowling mysteries, and I'm not a huge fan of mysteries.) Well, I'm finding myself succumbing to the charm of this man the more I read of him. He like a prior version of CS Lewis, only with more beer and impishness (and maybe a smidge more common sense, although I'm not really the one who could judge that.) So, here's my new favorite quote. Mom, I am sorry, but you have nobody but yourself to blame!

Nothing has contributed more to the impiety and inhumanity of our time than the exaggerated cult of cleanliness. The Pharisees had it; in the beginning they worshipped washing; and in the end they set about the slaying of God. GK Chesterton

It's comforting to know that I am not in danger of becoming a Pharisee!

I'd love to see a trained theologian tackle questions like these on a daily basis

We were listening to Gorecki's Miserere this afternoon, which led into a discussion about Christ's Passion.

"I know why Jesus was killed!" proclaimed Abbie. I asked her why.
"Because Jesus killed that other guy!" she confidently told me.
"Who?" I asked, trying to buy myself some time.
Abbie rolled her eyes at me and squinched up her face in that way that only she can do, "You know, that other guy."

I can't figure out who she means by "that other guy." It's all so very vague and toddler-ish. I think she may mean Lazarus, and I can kind of see why she thinks that, but I can't be sure. In any case, I tried very hard to assure her that Jesus never murdered anybody. Claire tried to help me.

"Jesus was nice!" she told Abbie. "It would not be good if Jesus was mean."
Abbie and I both agreed that it would indeed not be good.
"If Jesus was mean we would be in trouble!" said Claire.
"Yeah!" said Abbie, "Then he would kill that other guy!"


Later on, same day, Abbie suddenly yelled out, "God can hear everything we say! I know why He can - it's because God gots ears. He gots ears. Big ears! That's why He can hear me."

I told Abbie that God can indeed hear everything she says, but that He can also hear what is in her heart and mind.
"God doesn't just hear you like regular people - He can still hear you just fine even if you only talk to him in your mind."
She considered this a minute and then said, "Sure! But God still has ears!"

I am not going to tell her that God is not exactly some big Dumbo in the sky. I'm just going to hope that this one works itself out over time. But I can't help but wonder when we have these kind of discussions how in the world kids can up with such impossibly complex questions and misunderstandings. You can never be sure how well you really understand things like the mystery of the Eucharist until you try to explain it to your 5 year old, and realize how stupid you sound, and just how little you actually know. Kids are an amazing source of humility that way, although they are also an amazing source of insight as well.

Claire said, "It would not be good if Jesus was mean!" And she was totally right, in a crazy-profound way. It's pretty easy to take for granted the idea that God is good. What if He wasn't? What if He was mean? It shocked me how clearly Claire could see this : Jesus has to be good. Nothing - nothing in the whole world - makes sense if He isn't.

Too much girl power

Disturbing conversation today. While we were waiting for Katie and Beth to come out of religious ed, Claire and Abbie began to talk about God.

"Jesus doesn't know I'm a person," Abbie said.
"You mean, you don't think Jesus knows who you are?" I asked her.
"Well, yes, but then Jesus showed me her baby! It was very cute."

??? There were so many things wrong with this that I didn't know where to begin. I plowed through, though, and thought I did a pretty good job, considering the fact that I had somehow allowed my child to form the belief that Jesus is a girl.....who has a baby.

I thought I had cleared the air, but then Claire piped up, "Well Jesus is a boy, Abbie. Because God is a girl!"
"Um, no" I corrected her, "God is also a boy."
"No silly! God is a girl!"
"No, really," I told Claire, realizing that she considered it a matter of course that God is female. "God really is a boy. Male. I mean - God is the Father, Jesus is the Son." The sands were too precarious to even begin to explain the Holy Spirit here.

"Really?" asked Claire. "That's so strange."
"Yeah!" said Abbie, very emphatically beside her, "That is crazy."

Not exactly like Nietzsche

Lucy continues to terrorize us with her rolling over. As I type, she is fussing and squirming on the floor, furious at her own physical ability. I cannot wait until she figures out how to roll back off of her stomach!

I guess Claire was concerned yesterday about Lucy's mental health, because she came up with a clever idea to keep her from rolling over. She was working diligently in the living room, where Lucy was stretched out, quietly for once, on the floor, when Claire proudly called me in to see her solution. She had surrounded Lucy with pillows, the idea being that Lucy wouldn't roll onto them, and would thus stay on her back. (This doesn't actually work, but it was sweet of Claire to try.)

As I was thanking Claire for all her hard work, we both looked down at Lucy on the floor, surrounded on all four sides by the pillows. It sort of had the general shape of a cross, Lucy spread out in the middle. Claire looked up at me and said, "Hey! Lucy looks just like the dead God!"

Palm Sunday, or How To Torture A Young Family

Mass on Palm Sunday. Ah.

Our first mistake was to pick our mass time without reference to which priest would be presiding. Our parish has two wonderful priests, and we like both of them very much. However, one is lucid and mercifully succicint while the other is pretty elderly and not in the best of health, and a very sloooooooow talker to boot. Veeeeeeeeeery sloooooooooooow. Think Princess Bride guy, without the speech impediment.

Katie and Beth did a wonderful job. I need to state this first. Katie followed along in her new First Communion mass book, and she enjoyed reading the entire gospel as it was read. Beth couldn't quite follow the entire thing, but she could read the congregation's lines and that was enough to hold her interest.

Abbie, though, just really wanted to talk to Chris. She had a lot on her mind, I guess, and the long pauses between each word being read seemed like the perfect time to convey these thoughts to her Daddy. Claire, on the other hand, was not happy with all the attention I was giving Beth (I was pointing out the audience response ahead of time so that she would be ready) and decided that I need to read something to her. Right now. She wasn't satisfied by my efforts to show both her and the Beth the same book and in protest she began to squirm against me, evidently trying to touch as much of my body at once as humanly possible. And so Beth leaned in closer to me as well, both to see the book better and, I suspect, to defend her territory. And at that moment the baby started to kick me. Hard. I have never felt so claustrophobic in my life. Black spots were literally growing around my peripheral vision and it was becoming impossible to breathe. Meanwhile, Claire began crying because she wanted attention, Beth was shoving her head right into the part of my stomach where the baby was squirming, and the priest was up on the alter taking a full minute to read each. and. every. line. And then Abbie decided that she needed to be near Mommy as well.

We were smack in the middle of the pew, and there was nowhere for me to flee. Cue hormonal pregnant tears.

So Claire was crying, I was crying, Abbie was clearly thinking about crying, the baby was trying to break my ribs, Beth was shoving the book at me to keep on track, and Chris - from his end of the pew where there was air to breathe and just one, perfectly behaved 7 year old quietly reading, gave me a look that clearly said, "what is your problem?"

And Pilate said to the crowd, "What offense has this man committed?"
And they responded, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Holy Week is going to be great. No, really, it is. Because I'm getting my own pew. And we'll see then who gets to leave mass with dry eyes.

Maybe it's time to break out the holy water when...

...you overhear one little bright-eyed, mop-headed child suddenly exclaim to the other, "My finger talks to me!".....

....and she extends her pointer finger and, bending it in time to her voice, responds in a low, growly voice, "You need to eat that sandwich or you'll get in trouble."

Heaven help me, the mirror above my dresser gives a perfect view of the wall above my bed. Let's all hope I don't wake up to any lip-stick prophecies scrawled out backwards anytime soon.