Sunday Morning

I have decided to do a series of posts that center around life with three kids.  Another outing we take on a weekly basis is Sunday morning Mass.  Eric and I started going to St. Helen's shortly after moving to Dayton so the regular parishoners have seen us grow from a newly married couple to a family of 5 over the last 6 and a half years. 

I'd like to say that a typical Sunday has us waking up fresh from a full night of sleep and merrily getting to church on time.  But, that would be a lie.  As we attend 8 AM Mass, we should be leaving the house by 7:40 to get to church before the opening hymn.  This has happened, perhaps, 10 times since we moved to our house in Fairborn.  I'm guessing that would be a high estimate.  What happens more regularly is that the family sleeps in until 7:15 (after Eric and I go to bed too late due to some movie we started after 9 the night before).  Eric takes a quick shower and dresses as I convince myself that for the first time ever I will successfully get showered and dressed in under 5 minutes, thus justifying pulling the covers up and re-closing my eyes for another 15 minutes.  Eric persuasively argues that I am crazy and pushes me to the bathroom as he single handedly gets the children ready for church.  Though, after a couple of bad judgement calls on Molly's outfits, I have taken to laying those out for him.

Lately, the boys have been better about wearing church appropriate attire.  It helps if we give them a heads up the night before that we will be going to church in the morning.  It also helps that I lavish praise on them about how handsome they look.  It also helps when Will can wear his Superman underwear.  With these three tips, you too could have no tears on Sunday morning.  Molly does not care what she wears, as long as she can run around laughing about life in her diaper for little while.

Eric gets the kids downstairs and into the car while I put the finishing touches on my outfit.  We give the boys some dry cereal to munch on as we make the 15 minute drive to church.  We tried to do this once for Molly, but we ended up having to change her outfit because she was a little over eager with her breakfast.  The observant among you will notice I do very little to get my offspring ready for Mass and you would be correct. I do practically nothing, but I will remind you that I did carry all of them for 9 months and give birth to them.  I see Sunday morning as Eric's way to even the score...

Once we get to church, which could be at any time before the first hymn to (and this is embarrassing) sometime into the first reading, we try to sit down without disturbing too many people.  Eric is more successful at this than I am.  Perhaps because he is so tall he has a better view of the church and therefore can spot the perfect spot.  Once seated, the boys will look at books.  We have two regular ones.  One is a flip book with Bible stories and the other is a childrens' book about the stations of the cross.  Invariably, whichever book Dom picks is also the one Will would like.  After some stern words, we can convince Will to look at the different book.  Which he does while making sound effects and humming the Imperial March.  If I tell him to be quiet, he will say: "But, I am being quiet".  And, he isn't entirely wrong, because compared to his baseline volume, he is, in fact, being quiet.  I have now changed my phrasing to "You need to be silent".  However, I've yet to discover the translation for this in "William Dialect". 

In general, our kids do a nice job at Mass.  Dominic pays more attention every week and likes to ask questions.  Molly is very quiet, though she will make friends with every single person in our row as she tries to make an escape to the aisle.  She is also persistent in stealing toys if they are in her line of sight.  I learned that this morning.  William, well, what can I say?  He is 3 and does his best.  Most of the time.  He loves to sit on my lap and hold my hand as we go to Communion.  If he doesn't hold my hand, he just walks right up the middle of the two lines of people as if to say, "What is wrong with you people?  Just follow me, I know a short cut!"

 Now, I say they do a nice job, but I don't have a lot to compare them to.  Until recently, we were one of two families with children under the age of 5.  Lately, though, that number has been growing and we were recently told by an awestruck mother of a 2-year-old that our children were "so well-behaved".  Yes!!  Though, I think anyone with a 2-year-old will find that just about everyone looks well-behaved compared to your child. 

Eric and I sometimes wonder what the people behind us must think of our family.  I like to think that they good-naturedly laugh at us as we work at teaching our children how to behave in church.  I always appreciate it when people tell us that we remind them of when they had children our age or simply that they enjoy seeing our kids at Mass.  I hope they know that we are doing our best and that we aren't too distracting.  We are fortunate to belong to a wonderful parish with a priest who loves kids and readily welcomes them to Mass no matter their decibel level.

As the final hymn ends, we get on our coats and stand around talking to our friends whose ages range from early 20s to 90s while the boys run around with their friend, Jacob.  Molly is held by someone different every Sunday; however, I know those days are coming to an end as I watch her eagerly observing her brothers' antics. We discuss Jayhawk sports with Fr. Dave, round up our kids, and head for the Donut Shop, which will tide us over until brunch is served on our wedding china or my grandparents' china around 10:30.  Eric's choice since he is responsible for setting the table.  Wow, I really make him work on Sunday morning, don't I? 

As I said, Eric and I started going to St. Helen's when we first moved here after being married for 2 months.  From the first Sunday, we started implementing things we hoped would be traditions.  At the time, it felt like we were "playing house", but they have now become part of the routine of our Sunday morning, something I hope that we and our children will always appreciate.