Monday, March 21, 2005

The Mass-adventures of the Anderson Toddlers

Boy, was Mass today excruciatingly awful.

Not, mind you, the Mass itself. I wouldn't know, because I only witnessed about 10 minutes of it. And that was the part where we processed into the church with our palms and where I did the 2nd reading and the prayers of the faithful.

This was the absolute worst my 2 toddlers have ever been at Mass. They were fine while we processed in. But once we got inside, my goodness, were they a handful.

I made the mistake when we got our palms of explaining to my almost-3-year-old that the palms were for waving to Jesus. When we got inside the church, he spent the first 2 or 3 minutes waving his palm toward the front of the church loudly saying "Hi Jesus" over and over and over again.

When I finally got my oldest to stop saying "Hi Jesus", the 1-year-old started squirming, and kicking, and yelling. We got both kids to calm down just long enough for me to go up to do my lector thing for the 2nd reading. But when we got to the Gospel, I knew the boys were done for good. No way were they going to sit still and be quiet for that long of a reading.

So, while my wife stayed in the pew, I removed both children to outside. Where they continued to make noise that was clearly audible inside. Unfortunately, the oldest was yelling so loud, that my wife heard him from within and came out of the church to calm him down.

After a while, we got both kids calm enough so that we could go back inside for me to lector the prayers of the faithful. After which, I had to promptly remove them again because of their disruptive behavior.

So, the kids and I basically missed all but about 10 minutes of what is one of my favorite Masses -- Palm Sunday. At least my wife was able to participate in a majority of the Mass.

Stay tuned next week for the Mass-adventures of my 2 beautiful (but wildly rambunctious) boys, where I hope my report will be either short or non-existent.

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4 Comments:

At 3/21/2005 11:59 AM, Blogger Eutychus Fell said...

Hang in there. When I had three under the age of 4 we ended up not going & now, of course, when those three are in college, we wish we had been stronger.

 
At 3/21/2005 12:25 PM, Blogger Jessica said...

I so feel your pain! ; )
Just remember- what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger. And look at what a great opportunity God gives us to practice patience and loving acceptance! That being said, I know its the farthest thing from your mind when your in the back, gritting your teeth and fuming. I'm still there with ya!

 
At 3/21/2005 3:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jay--

Thanks for posting. I did what Eutychus said he did--when we had three under 4, we would occasionally miss Mass because "we weren't getting anything out of it."

Glad a relative brought us back to our senses. We then pulled a Costanza and did the opposite of what our instincts told us. We found the most reverent (and beautiful) parish we could find and sat as close to the front as we could. It really seemed to help focus their attention.

Oh, and we also chose Masses that corresponded to at least one naptime (e.g., the Saturday vigil Mass). We occasionally disturbed others with the sound of snoring, but that was music to our ears.

 
At 3/21/2005 5:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least your young son got a religious meaning out of Palm Sunday - our almost 3 year old kept referring to his Palm as his Lightsaber and sword fought with it so wildly it had to be taken away!

 

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