Why Do I Leave My House????
Yesterday was not a bad day. Until the children got home, that is. I went with Wendi to her first radiation treatment and we went to lunch and had a lovely day. Then the bus came. Not only am I a proponent of year round school, I am a proponent of round the clock school. Could they just keep them until bed time?
Well, it wouldn't have been so bad, but yesterday was a Holy Day of Obligation. For those non Catholics out there, it's one of those days where you better go to Mass or else! It was the feast of the Assumption of Mary. This is the one where Mary is sucked up into heaven, quite unexpectedly, because she gave birth to our Savior. It's one of those Catholic, not in the actual Bible but it sounds good kind, of celebrations. I can see you cringing Margie!!!!
So I loaded up the kids and off we went to St. Mark the Evangel for the 6 pm mass. I packed a bag of activities for Anna, thinking it would keep her busy during the mass, since Tim was not going to leave work to join me. Heathen!! Little did I know, it was not enough.
It started out well enough. We walked in to the sounds of Hail Holy Queen, an old favorite of ours. Unfortunately, there was no choreography to go with the music, but you know how stuffy catholics are! Anna was happily exploring the bag of things to do and entertained herself right through the homily.
It was after the homily that things started to go downhill. Many of you are familiar with Anna's demon heritage. We suspect she actually may be Beezlebub disguised as an angelic seeming 5 year old, although we have never located the numbers 666 tatooed anywhere on her body. But last night was one more proof that it is so.
As we stood, Anna wanted to be perched on the back of the pew in front of us. I don't have a problem with that because she's too heavy to hold and it helps me keep her contained. But last night, she decided it would be fun to lean backwards and bop her head up and down and all around. Every time she leaned back, I'd pull her up. She'd smirk at me and then drop back down. Five minutes into the game, I am sweating and my back feels like I've been hauling pianoes all day. So I moved her down to the kneeler.
She popped right back up and climbed onto the back of the pew. I put her down. She climbed back up. I put her down. She climbed back up. By now, I was imagining how satisfying it would be to whack her on the head with the hymnal. But I hissed at her "Stop it right now or I'll take you to the bathroom." She smirked at me and kept going.
So I hauled her up and started to drag her out of the pew. Only she resisted me, which made me madder. By now, I did not care if I was accused of child abuse. All I cared about was getting her out of that church so I could beat the demon out of her. But of course, she resisted and hooked her feet around the kneeler, which just made me madder. Josh and Abby were looking at me in terror, knowing that Anna was about to be Dead Girl Walking and they were telling her to let go and just go with me and get it over with.
I yanked her by the arm out of the pew and her shoe came off. So all the way out of the church (and of course we had sat near the front) she yelled "I need my shoe...I want my shoe..." I marched her straight to the bathroom and gave her fanny a couple of whacks and told her we would stand there until she could be quiet.
As soon as we left the bathroom, she made a beeline for the doors leading to the sanctuary. I grabbed her and told her no, we would wait until she calmed down. Then she started screaming, so I had to pull her over to a corner and tell her to stop. Then she made a beeline for the steps leading to the choir loft and I had to grab her and yank her down. She was completely out of control.
By now, day of obligation or not, I was completely sorry I had ever gone to church. Mary is a mother and I am sure she understands there are times when you just cannot make it to church. Not that I think Jesus threw tantrums of this magnitude, but I am sure there were other kids in Nazareth that maybe weren't quite as well behaved as the lord. Surely Mary has seen it all!
I finally manhandled the Bad Seed out of the church and we stood in the parking lot for several minutes, with me doing Lamaze breathing and trying to quell my murderous thoughts. When we had both sufficiently cooled down, we went back into the narthex. And damn, if that little demon didn't run straight into the sanctuary before I could stop her. At this point, I was really, really afraid I was going to do something bad. I opened the door and there she was, making her way back to our pew, determined to get her shoe!
Communion was actually still going on, so I got in the back of the line and went up to take Communion with murder in my heart. I looked at the crucifix over the altar and asked Jesus to forgive my desire to murder my youngest offspring as I received the Eucharist. Then I headed straight for the pew and told Josh and Abby we were leaving now. Anna was nowhere to be seen.
We headed out the door and there she was, in the back of the narthex, smirking at me. I told her she better get over to me right now or she was getting left behind and I stalked right out, not caring if she was behind me or not. We got into the car, she started telling me she was not going to buckle herself into her seat. "Fine," I snarled, "maybe the police will pull us over and take you away from me!!" Dr. Spock 101!!
At this writing, Anna is still alive, whole, and unblemished. However, she is grounded from playing with anyone for the rest of the week!!!
