In the spirit of just having had the kids baptised, Carl and I decided to start packing up the whole fam-damily for mass on Saturday evenings and then having a family dinner out every week. Figured it could be a nice opportunity for family bonding. Sounds nice, right? Well, if this past Saturday was a sign of how it will always be, I know for certain now that God has a sense of humor. We are officially "that family" with "those kids" at church. My son is VERY 2, which means sitting for more than 2 minutes is so far out of the question is preposturous. And since Paige started crawling, she starts whining the second you pick her up off the floor. She's aparently a very busy girl with places to be, and me interrupting her crawling to these places is the most frustrating thing for her. I was anticipating these problems, so I loaded the diaper bag with toy dinosaurs, coloring books, animal crackers, Matchbox cars, a bottle, teething rings, Baby Orajel, etc...and that all worked beautifully...for about 3.5 minutes. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something pumped through the venting system at church, because my kids can be absolute angels all day, and the second we open the doors to church, they're like rabid monkies! Ugh! 43 long minutes later, we were piling into the car to head to dinner. We had made it through mass, how bad could dinner be?! My son is the happiest when he's got food in front of him! We decide to go to Friday's since it's a family restaurant, and it's early enough that a crying kid won't attract dirty looks. Keep in mind that by now it's almost 6:30, which is when Paige is usually snuggling up for the night with a nice bottle and her daddy in a rocking chair. So, the loud, bright atmosphere at Friday's was lost on her. She was miserable. Carl, on the other hand, was behaving as though he had been mainlining espresso for the past 2 hours! He was bouncing off the walls! Our poor waitress...I left her a really good tip, so I'm hoping they won't run screaming should we decide to go there again!
That being said, in hindsight, things could've gone much worse than they did. I'm a firm believer in beginning as you intend to go on. So, this will be our Saturday evening routine for years to come. If they don't get used to going to church now, it's only going to be more difficult in the years to come. So, for those of you in the King of Prussia area, if you hear screaming children around 5 pm Saturday night, don't worry...it's just the Rudegeairs.
I feel like 'that mom', too! There have been many times when we bring Natalie into the church service with us, because, hey! She's been delightful all day, so I'm sure she'll be quiet and well-mannered during the service. I've frequently had to do the walk of shame out of the sanctuary. And I've also had to do the walk of shame when my number is flashed up on the board indicating that there's a problem with Natalie in the nursery and I need to address it. Ahhh, parenthood.
ReplyDelete