For the love of, appropriately, GOD!! I submit the following complaints:
-- If AJ attempts to lift and lower the kneelers with an associated BANGING of the pew in front of us... one more time, I will most assuredly scream. Probably during the Consecration. (Today he whined aloud, as we all knelt down, "Noooo! Get up, everybody!")
-- If I have to leave the sanctuary and take AJ into the narthex, where all the other desperate parents are with their infants, 1s and 2-year olds (which AJ actually thinks is a real treat rather than a punishment)... one more time... there will probably be a public spanking right in front of the Fellowship Coffee display.
-- If I have to sit in front of a precious family of three, whose 3-year-old is sitting there in his perfectly tucked-in button-down (because he's being QUIET and STILL), feeling their eyes BORE into me and hearing their brains cluck, "She should really get control of her kid" (because I used to say the same in MY brain, before having a child)... one more time... I will have to slink under the pew myself and crumble into a big heap of embarassment.
-- If I have to spend one more entire Mass alternately hissing at AJ and pleading silently with my eyes for Husband to STEP IN once in a while, for gosh sakes... well. It all just makes me wonder when they tell us Jesus experienced the whole of being human. SURELY he didn't make his Mother Mary feel such things during Temple, did He?
This is why my parents went to Mass separately all those years when Sis and I were toddlers. This is why smart people take the kid to the nursery (not me). This is why mommies and daddies feel harried even in the hour of prayer and worship -- that special, quiet family time on Sundays (ha ha): we're busy chasing down God, and wrestling with the kids. Bargaining please, GOD make him be quiet for just TEN MORE MINUTES so we can sing this one hymn and then get my doughnut and get out of here. (Because surely I deserve it, and you better believe I will eat it in front of him-who-doesn't!) Lord, Have Mercy! Amen.
3 comments:
My comments are too too long to publish here. Hang in there ~ it gets better. really. I think it gets better faster if you avoid the nursery route, but that is just my opinion. I remember telling my mom once that I was goign to quit goign to church because between getting everyone dressed and there on time and then the toddler struggle inside I became the antithesis of a Christian mother. We'll talk soon. Krispy Kreme has been a great positive motivator around here.
Mass with small ones is so hard. We have used the nursery at times, but try not to do so. I just tell myself that I get the graces I need whether I am paying attention or not and that God knows the intentions of my heart. He'll learn one day. And, there is no telling what means of parenting are used to get the other 3-year old to sit as still as a statue, so don't sweat it.
It does get better.
Hahaha, reminds me of how, when we got to the "no crying he makes" part of "Away in a Manger," I leaned over to HPR and said "yeah, right."
We use the nursery at our Quaker Meeting, but once in a while we'll have him with us for the first 15 minutes, when the [mostly older] children are in worship with the parents. It's admirable that you're getting AJ used to Mass, despite your frustrations.
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