Good Old Catholic Guilt

I took Ethan to church with me this morning. Any of you who personally know Ethan know that this is not just a little thing - taking Satan's spawn into a house of God is no easy feat. AJ was tired this morning from a long day yesterday (he judged a choir competition in Ohio) and Jack usually naps during mass time. I either had a bout of insanity or a strong desire for a guarantee to make it into heaven and took Ethan along with me, despite AJ's insistence that he would be fine at home with both boys.

When we pulled in to church, Ethan told me he was SO tired. Great, I thought in seriousness. Maybe then he'd sit still during mass...

We chose a pew near the back, armed with a new activity book from Aunt Jenny, fruit snacks, and milk. Immediately, I regretted my decision to bring him. Whining, whining, whining. He wanted fruit snacks immediately. He wanted to sit down closer to 'the stage', as he called it. He wanted to go to Giant Eagle to see if their Starbucks had pink cake pops.

I made the bold move to a place I never wanted to go - the cry room. I've always walked by there and seen strung-out looking parents miserably trying to watch mass on a flat screen tv while kids roamed around crying. But, I wanted to be able to actually make it through mass (well, at least through communion...and if I'm being totally honest, at least until they took my weekly envelope...) without offering my child up for an exorcism.

Calmer times - movie night on Saturday

While in this hellish room, I learned a few things:

1) Ethan is not so bad. He was actually one of the better-behaved kids in there, aside from the sweet little bookworm who sat there and read while her monster sister threw a fit. He colored a little bit and wanted to be held on my lap. Not so bad at all. He actually was most amused by my necklace. Had I realized all I had to do was take it off and let him observe the shapes and colors, we could have probably stayed in the main room just fine.

2) You get absolutely nothing out of church by sitting in this room. I could hardly hear anything over the ill-timed squeals and cries from the kids (and subsequent yelling of the parents). It was highly annoying. I'm not the best Catholic in the world (with my liberally-swayed opinions, I sometimes worry that the church will catch fire when I enter...my youngest child has a Jewish Godfather and a gay Godfather - double-whammy), I do like to listen and try to make sense of the readings and message of the day. That can't happen in the cry room, and it wasn't Ethan's fault. One father in there seriously talked - loudly - to his wife the entire time. His kids were sitting nicely coloring in their seats. I wanted to scold him, but that wouldn't have been a churchy thing to do, I suppose.

3) There are other sane people in the cry room, and I actually made a friend with an adorable 9-month-old baby girl who would look very cute next to my 10-month-old boy :-)

4) I could use church time to impose some old-fashion Catholic guilt upon my child, just as I have been indoctrinated into. While sitting sweetly on my lap, Ethan looked up, smiled at me, and said "butt-cheeks" - thank you, Calvin...When I told him not to say that word, especially in church, he said "no one heard me, Mommy. I can say it if church doesn't hear me." Cue God-fearing rationale: "Ethan, God can hear you even if you don't say the words out loud." That went well. Lots of 'why's' and 'how's' were asked, and hopefully none of the other parents heard my less-than-Catholic-approved replies.

5) Santa is more powerful than God. While trying to explain the whole God sees/hears all thing, I told Ethan it was kind of like Santa (he sees you when you're sleeping/he knows when you're awake), and that did the trick. "Santa knows I say poopie and butt cheeks?" Uh - Yeah, buddy. He does. Be very, very afraid. He's taking notes.

How the other half spends their time...

6) Bribery gets you far. Ethan was getting a little squirrelly by the end of mass and knew that after communion (aka - bammunion, according to Ethan), we got to go to Giant Eagle, which has a Starbucks, which sells Ethan's crack - pink cake pops. I taught him to reply "Lord, hear our prayer" and he said the Lord's prayer from memory, though with a few different words thanks to his Presbyterian pre-school, and told the priest "Thank you" when he blessed him during communion. All of this participation and politeness was for the sole purpose of getting a cake pop.

7) Ethan is a lot like his Dad. The only way I get AJ to church is if I promise we can go to lunch or brunch somewhere yummy in Cranberry afterwards.