sunday church

Last Sunday, I had almost decided to leave Abby at the alter in hopes that gypsies or a kind churchgoer would take her in. She was not on her best behavior. At all.

I think I mentioned this previously, but she wasn't trying to be bad - she was just very unsettled. She wanted up, no down, no up, no down. She wanted to climb on top of and under the pews. She wanted colors, no not THAT one, the black one. She didn't want to color on paper as much as she did the pews. I was sweating 20 mins into the service from just trying to wrangle her. I was exhausted....and to be honest, not so happy.

This morning, as we were getting ready - we said, "Abby, are you ready to go to church?" And she said, in no uncertain terms, "Nooo! NONONONO!"

oy vey.

I was not looking forward to another hour like last week.

But, then - something happened. Somebody switched my defiant wiggly toddler for a little angel child. Kyle and I both exchanged glances throughout the service asking each other, "why is she being so good?"

We got there, and she colored, nicely, on her paper. She asked, nicely, for a cracker and then some water (usually she demands the milk right away). She sat in the pew with us for a little while. She played contently and quietly and appropriately by herself for the first part of the service.

There was a baptism today and I picked her up so she could see the baby. She saw it, and then she started looking around for others (there are a lot). Then she started counting, "one, two, three, four babies! I see five babies! Six babies!" It was pretty cute.

Kyle took her to sit at the front of the alter during communion, as all the kids are invited to do - and she didn't try to run away and tackle the priest or anything - she sat, in his lap, happily. They came back during the time where we "pass the peace" and Abby was merrily chiming, "Peace Mama! Peace Daddy!" After a few times of that, she said "Peace Abby!" She put her dollar in the offering very nicely and sat with me quietly afterwards. She held my hand while we went up for communion and when we got back to our seat - she just sat on the kneeler, very still, for probably 5 minutes. She was...just sitting. It was so odd.

As we stood up to end Mass, Abby said, "Peace mama! Peace daddy! hmmm. Peace - Pizza?" Then she asked "car? Pizza?"

So, yeah, go ahead and tell me how we were supposed to resist that? We couldn't. She got pizza for lunch.

I just wanted to document that, at least this once, she was as perfectly behaved as I could have ever hoped. And I was quite appreciative. Thanks kiddo.