Easter Sunday Mass: The Art of Distraction

My wife and I usually tag-team mass on Sunday. One of us goes to Mass early—and by early I mean 10:30 a.m.—and the other stays home with the four knuckleheads (children). Then we switch. The other spouse goes to the next Mass with the two older children (5 ½ and 7). This is a tried-and-true system. Why mess with it? Well, somehow I got it into my head that since it was Easter, that we should all go to Mass together as a family. Was I to use the modern standard of the value of mass, “What did I get out of it?”, I would never return to mass again. The entire mass was an exercise in child distraction. The two youngest are 18 months and 3 ½ years old. The 3-year-old decided that he was the host of the party and it would certainly be rude if he did not personally manage to say hello to everyone there. So I gave him a lollipop. He immediately sat down and was quiet. Genius! The 18-month-old is very enthralled with the sound of his voice right now and liked the sound of the reverberation in the church. So, genius that I am and witnessing the miraculous quieting effect of the lollipop on the 3-year-old, I gave the baby a lollipop too. My wife was at the other end of the pew trying to keep the 5- and 7-year-old children from having a donnybrook right there in the pew. See, we usually sit between them at mass, but this day they sat together and since we were distracted by the youngins, they naturally began to fight. So I also gave the baby a lollipop to miraculous effect. Instant quiet! As the baby happily made quick work of the lollipop, I shot self-congratulatory looks to my wife, “see how smart I am?” Surprisingly, she mouthed back “I don’t think that is a good idea”. Hmmm…Ah, what does she know? She is just jealous of my natural parenting ability. Needless to say, the baby soon bit off half of the stick with the remaining lollipop in his mouth and handed me the remainder of the stick as if to say, “Here you go, stupid!” The baby then proceeded to clench those little choppers down as hard as he could. There was no extracting the remainder of the lollipop. Try as I might, I could not get the baby to give up the lil’ sucker. After what seemed like an eternity with all the surrounding pews focused on my ordeal, the baby casually spit the remainder of the pop out into my hand. My wife just stared me down. She then moved to my end of the pew, and then took the baby from me while giving me the “look”. She proceeded to give him raisins one at a time which I realize is a much better idea… now. I think we will be going to separate masses next week.