In an
earlier post, I wrote about how difficult it is for a Mommy of many small children just to keep my clothes on during Mass. That was one of my favorite posts to write, except the fact that it shows everyone just how well I manage to concentrate on worship most Sundays. Besides keeping your clothes on, there is the greater challenge of managing to actually pray at Mass. We attend the old liturgy, the 1962 version, where the Mass is in Latin, except the Kyrie, which is in Greek. (The sermon is in English, since we aren't so well-educated that we could understand it in Latin.) Some of the prayers are said at the altar in a very low voice, so those of us in the pews cannot hear them anyway. All the prayers are contained in the missal, which gives the Latin and English. The missal is equipped with multiple ribbons so you can mark your place in the propers and flip over to the readings for the specific day. Yes, you can manage a missal and small children, but you will not always be in the right place in the missal at the right time. This is a very reverent liturgy, and as I mentioned, quiet, so keeping children quiet takes priority.
On a typical Sunday, we arrive early, take everyone to the bathroom, and proceed into the church. First stop is the holy water font, where the children jockey for position to be first to stick their fingers or entire hands into the water. Then, blessed and dripping, they shamble to the pew. Often one child falls down in the few feet from the font to our favorite pew, or a couple of them run into each other. That is always a sign it is going to be a great day. When you get to your pew, you genuflect. The children do variations of this. Some genuflect, facing the correct direction. Some genuflect towards the choir and the exit door. Some bob up and down very quickly so they can jump into the pew first. We sort out the children and arrange them around us. Certain children do better next to Papa. Thomas has to sit by Mommy or the world will come to an end. Then you have to watch because the children love to deploy the kneelers, and some of them are likely to come down with a resounding crash on the bare floor. We kneel piously to pray, which triggers someone to throw a fit because they are not sitting where they want to sit. Another child offers me a booger. I'm just thankful when they offer it to me instead of wiping it on my skirt.
It is always interesting to see who will need to go to the bathroom first. This is always announced in a very loud hissing whisper. When you suggest that we wait awhile, it is followed by the child holding his crotch, jumping up and down, and announcing he will pee on the floor if he doesn't go IMMEDIATELY. When you have a child in diapers they will always save up so they can produce a huge poop during Mass. When my youngest child was still in diapers, I once smelled a suspicious smell, and tried to discreetly do the manuever where you pull the back of their pants out a little and try to peek down into the darkness to see if anything is in there. In this case, my charming son said, loudly, "I'm not poopy, it's just GAS!" This is the child who frequently has these eruptions on Sunday mornings, and of course he sits on my lap. Sometimes I feel sorry for the people who sit near us, but of course I try to act nonchalant, even when my skirt is flapping in the breeze and the whole area around us smells like a sewage lagoon. I have one child who whenever it is inconvenient to go to the bathroom, has the bladder capacity of a thimble. I think one Sunday I took her to the bathroom at least three times in an hour. You start smiling apologetically at the other moms you meet in the bathroom. "We're back!" It is always tricky getting out to take children to the bathroom during the part of the Mass when everyone is kneeling. You have to climb over all the sets of legs to get to the aisle, lifting the child over each one, avoiding losing your skirt in the process.
I addition to bathroom trips and diapers, not to mention the gas problems, I have one child who is prone to nosebleeds. I keep a small blanket in the bag that we call the "sacred sack", which contains our missals and the even more essential large stash of tissues that I need when the kids present me with finds from their noses. It isn't uncommon to look up and see Jose holding his nose, with blood running down his arm. I have gotten very quick at grabbing the blanket to keep the blood from getting everywhere, but a few years ago, before I started carrying the blanket, he had a major nosebleed while hanging over the back of the pew in front of us. I rushed him to the bathroom while Mr. B. used tissues to sop up the puddle before someone sat in it. Usually one trip to the bathroom for a mopping up operation and a cold wet paper towel is enough, but one time his nose started bleeding again several times--I think we left four times that day. I have learned how to act nonchalant with a big blotch of blood down the front of my blouse.
Things that come from noses brings me to the other fun part of being a mom--booger collecting. My children present their finds to me with great fanfare, holding them up so that all the other people in the vicinity can enjoy them as well. Sometimes they impulsively blow their noses on my arm, but boogers are usually presented more formally. One of my daughters is famous for explosive, wet sneezes. These happen seemingly without warning and have to be smothered with the emergency blanket, if it isn't already soaked with blood from a nosebleed, before everything in a 5-foot-radius is splattered.
During the Mass we stand, sit, and kneel. I have learned through experience not to do any of these things too quickly, to avoid sitting or kneeling on a small person. They pull on my clothes, stand on my skirt, and sometimes get into fights. This may show my failing as a mother, but as long as they aren't making a sound, I piously ignore most scuffles, while pretending to be concentrating very hard on praying. Maybe Mr. B. will take care of things if they get out of hand. The kids also fiddle with any jewelry that I have on, and not long ago Jose unraveled part of my scarf. He got a thread loose and made several holes, and actually had the nerve to act like he had done a great thing. I wasn't about to congratulate him on his great hand-eye coordination in that situation!
The advantage of taking small children to Mass is that I usually do not have any problem with falling asleep. The best Mass wake-up call was when I was sitting quietly, and maybe actually praying for a change, when a sudden sharp pain jolted me back to paying attention to my little lambs. My darling youngest son was ripping out my arm hairs one by one. I whispered to him to stop, and his reply was, "I don't like those hairs on there." I guess that is just one more opportunity to offer it up. Who needs a hair shirt when they have children? They are determined to make a saint out of me, in spite of my best efforts. When I first had children, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on the Mass, but this is an occupational hazard that we mothers have to offer up. Now I have gotten so used to re-directing myself in between the bio-hazard duties, that I think I wouldn't know what to do if I did go to Mass by myself. I would probably be distracted by not being distracted. As it is, I love going to Mass, in spite of the challenges. And when the incense is in the air and the bell rings, and my children are all around me (several of them on my skirt) it is one of the best times of the week.
