Outnumbered

Toby and I have known for a while that we are done having kids. Two kids works out well for us, and we have several reasons why we know that 2 is it for us. One of those reasons is that we aren't outnumbered. When push comes to shove, we can each take one child and separate them, each getting the full attention of 1 adult. Mass is one of the big areas where this comes into play.

Well, today I was outnumbered at mass. Toby got called out earlier than we thought, so he missed mass. That left just me to juggle to 2 kids. Either one alone would have been easy to manage, but together...they definitely feed off of each other, and in mass, I am limited in how I can manage the situation. Here's how it usually goes down:

Aaron starts off just fine. He's 7 now, and can be pretty well-behaved and pay attention for most of the mass (aside from constantly checking my watch to see how much time until mass is over). Sadie starts off wanting to be held. That's fine, but as soon as Sadie gets held, Aaron wants to be held to. When I tell him he's too big, whining commences about the fairness of the situation. If Sadie gets to be held, so should he. So, we have told Sadie that she can't be held anymore. Now, she whines when we won't hold her, and complains about being tired. She leans on one of us, whimpers, holds her arms up...anything to try to get us to pick her up. Finally, she'll give up and be content leaning on us, and sitting on our lap when we get to sit down. Aaron will usually sit on the other lap. Great routine when both of us are there.

But today...Today was Palm Sunday, and those of you who are Catholic out there know that Palm Sunday is torture for kids. Instead of the 1 hour mass, we get a good 20 minutes extra (hopefully that stores up some extra points in heaven for me). And all of that extra time is spent standing because the Gospel is so long. I really thought that I'd be okay in mass today, though, because it is the 1st Sunday of the month. That means children's liturgy, where the kids leave when it's time for the readings, and don't come back until it is time for the collection. I figured the kids would be fine those first few minutes of mass because the palms would entertain them, and then they'd get back with only about 25 minutes left of mass.

Well, I guess no one else wanted my kids for the longer mass. There was no children's liturgy today. Of all days, today was one where this service was needed. I got very little out of mass today because I spent the entire time juggling 2 kids, trying to keep them quite and separated. I guess it's a good thing that the Gospel is the same every Palm Sunday...I have the gist of the story down pretty well. I hope that Toby is home for the Easter Vigil mass. If he's not, I think we may opt to go Easter morning...