What. A. Day.
Yesterday was quite a day. It all started off innocently enough with morning church. We decided to try out a local catholic church. We have been going to a church that I absolutely love and get a lot out of, but C stresses that a church must have structure for it to be beneficial for a child’s spiritual growth. So we are going back to a Catholic church and I am hoping (praying and wishing) that it will grow on me and help inspire us to incorporate religion into our home instead of just restricting it to a Sunday visit. I am optimistic that this will happen in due time and that I just have to be patient. I thought the church was beautiful, however, the church we went to doesn’t have child care. One of the main things I like about church is that it gives Nathan a rare chance to interact with other babies his age. He is a very social baby and it is important for him to interact with other kids his age. So…we are on the hunt again for another church that has child care during service.
On a less serious topic, Sunday was quite a day for us three! Since he had to stay with us during mass, I had the difficult task of keeping a hyper 10-month old quiet and stationary. We had to sit in the far back in case I needed to make a quick exit with a fussy baby, so we didn’t understand a word of anything that went on. So we resorted to standing up and sitting down repeatedly along with the rest of the congregation and crossing ourselves whenever they did. Thankfully, we managed to avoid the worst of bad baby behavior such as screaming tantrums. However, we had several other delightful (ahem) bouts to share with unwilling parishoners.
He gave me a black eye.
Seriously, he did. While holding him, he suddenly arched his back and flung his hands upwards and one of his fist hit me, hard, directly on my eyeball. Instantly my eye turned red and started watering up and throbbing like a bad sinus infection. My mascara makeup started to run down my face and I grabbed a burpy towel to keep it under control. I think that some of the church goers thought that somehow the service moved me to tears. I added a few sniffles for good measure just in case. Lol.
Communion.
My father is Catholic and I was baptized Catholic as an infant, but I have never had my first communion. So, instead of accepting the “body and bread” of Christ, I have to instead cross my arms over my chest and receive instead a quick blessing or prayer. Since I held Nathan in my arms, I could only cross one hand. So when I finally got up to the parishion leader who gives out the communion, she didn’t see the gesture and started to give me the bread instead. I shook my head and she looked confused. Anyhow, it caused an embarrassing pause and rift in the well-oiled communion process. To make matters worse, Nathan lunged for the plate of little wine thimbles and thankfully I pulled him back in time to prevent spilling the entire contents onto the church’s newly carpeted floors.
Not so holy Sounds
Nathan was quite musical during service. Somehow, he managed to save his, um, musical making to the quietest moments during mass. If I had paid closer attention, I would have the subtle reddening of his face and slightly quiet concentration, but I missed it. So the Priest sings last note, silence insures. Nathan’s straining grunt, followed by a little toot and another. I feel the vibration from his diaper and found myself thinking, “Please oh PLEASE do not let this be a BM right here in church!”
It turns out that it was just a little gas episode and that we were safe…for the moment. In the meantime, my keeping-baby-quiet tactics were causing a little stir on its own.
Tactic #1: A baby can’t talk with a mouthfull of food.
I had a little dispenser filled with cheerios and readily popped on into his mouth the instant I thought he was about to be loud. A secondary, unexpected side-affect presented itself whenever Nathan decided to entertain himself with a cheerio spitting contest. Nuff’ said.
Tactic #2: A baby with a toy and pacifier is too busy to be loud.
Nathan extended his spitting contest to using his pacifier instead of cheerios. His target? The innocent guy sitting in front of him. I think he was hit twice with a pacifier before I finally put the flying silicon and plastic missle away for good. Toys: I had some little flashcards with pictures for him to look at instead of books. I was afraid that he would throw the books or hit himself and thought that he couldn’t possibly disturb anyone with a card.
Nathan tossed the card at the lady behind us and again at the poor man in front of us before I, too, put the cards up.
Holy Tooting;
Later during Mass, while saying the Lord’s prayer, Nathan’s holy tooting resumed yet again and I found myself saying a Mother’s version of the prayer instead.
Mom’s version of the Lord’s Prayer:
Heavenly Father, hallowed be thy name, thy will be (baby toots) done, on Earth as it is in Heaven,
(baby toots again *lord please do not let this child have a bm right now!*)
Give us this day,
(noxious smell waifs up from diaper, baby strains and grunts through another toot. *this is NOT happening, I will finish this prayer and his diaper will be baby fresh and this will all be a false alarm and)
our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses,
(an unmistakeable odor fills our little pew area and the gas cloud makes its way to the pews in front of us and behind us, a lady sniffs and looks at me with a knowing smile…)
Anyhow…we mother’s have our own versions of just about anything, church prayers included.
After putting up the toys, food, and pacifier, the only tactic I had left was to give him a bottle. I let him have all of the fluids he could hold and it was enough to get us though the rest of Mass. In the end, we left church leaving a lovely scent trail behind us and me with black eye and mascara running down my face.
C was in a great mood and wanted to go out to eat. While waiting for our table, Nathan’s diaper somehow shifted and soaked through and onto my dress. Covered in urine, I took him to be changed and found that only part of his undershirt was wet and that the diaper shifted and let the leak out. I took care of him, gave up on myself, and headed out to our table. Nathan screamed and pealed and grabbed at every. single. item on the table and almost pulled our glassed out all over the table. He was hungry and so while C ate I spooned some of my food to him until he was full. Just when I finally got to eat, Nathan had a BM and filled our area with an unappetizing odor. I sighed, put down my fork, and took him to be changed.
On the changing table, I had set his dirty diaper aside and had just finished wiping him clean. The door started to open and I spotted a cute little old lady trying to get through with her walker. With one hand on him, I straddled the space between the changer and door and held the door open for her. As she slowly made her way through, Nathan’s naked self started peeing! The little yellow arch reached the wall and then bounced off to land perfectly on my hand. I couldn’t let go of the door and let it shut on the poor old lady, so I could do nothing at all about being peed on. When she finally made it through, she took a moment to remark about how sweet and cute my baby is. Nathan then used the moment of my distraction to reach down and grab his poo-c0vered diaper and pulled it up so suddenly that it got stuck onto my forearm, sunny side up! Sooooo gross!
The little old lady finally went pass us. I cleaned myself up and headed back out to my largely untouched dinner. C was polishing off his dessert and I asked for a to-go box. What. A. day.
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