"Excuse me, you have some dirt on your head."

So, here we go: 40 (or so) days in the blogosphere, sharing my daily adventures/thoughts/musings/rantings with all of YOU!!! You’re excited, right? Well, I am. Because this will be a challenge for me. One, because I don’t always have time to sit down and write. Scratch that. I don’t always make time to sit down and write. And that’s partly what my Lenten resolution is about this year—MAKING time for the things that are important to me and help me stay sane. One of those things for me is writing and sharing my frustrations and joys with all of you out there. I hope it helps you, too, to know that we often share the same frustrations even when we feel like we are all alone in Crazy Town.

The second reason this will be challenging for me is that, because I don’t write every day, I edit what I want to say so that I can sort of make it count so to speak. This daily sharing thing will be interesting because some days I’m sure I’ll have nothing profound or entertaining to say at all.

Okay, enough about all of the why behind my internet display of insanity. Either you’ll love reading these daily musings or you won’t. Either way, it’s happening people. And it all started today with Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent and the preparation for Easter Sunday.

For my protestant friends out there, you may be wondering what in the heck Lent is or what in the heck Ash Wednesday is. And I’ll give a small overview but *very* small because I’m not a theologian and I don’t want to give any misinformation.

Basically, Lent is a time of preparation for Easter. It’s a time of penance which is why many people “give up” something or challenge themselves to do more of something. It’s a time to prepare yourself for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ (Easter). Ash Wednesday is the kick-off and during an Ash Wednesday service, you get ashes smudged on your forehead in the shape of a cross. The ashes are an outward sign of repentance to God.

 Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite services the Catholic Church offers. This “celebration” is more exciting to me than New Year’s. I mean, I LOVE this season in the Church. I love the weeks leading up to Easter. I feel so much anticipation in preparing for the VERY reason we are able to call ourselves Christian—the death and resurrection of Christ. I even love this more than Christmas.

I mean, I enjoy the celebration of the birth of Christ but it was his DEATH that saved us from our sins and I just love that the Church recognizes this whole season as being incredibly significant to us as Christians. And I’m probably not doing it very much justice because it’s so much deeper than that. I’m not sure I am or that I can articulate well why this build up to Easter makes me feel so ALIVE inside.

Based on what you now know about my excitement about Lent, you probably guessed that I was in attendance at the Ash Wednesday service this morning.  And I brought The Boss Lady. By myself.

Now, if Lent is a time of penance for our sins, I feel pretty strongly that enduring church with Olivia should be considered part of my penance. I mean, I cannot tell you how many church services Mike and I have endured with her where we wanted the floor to just open up and swallow us before we died of embarrassment.

Olivia is not a quiet kid. Or a calm kid. Or the kind of kid who listens to instructions very well. Like right now, she’s watching a movie as I type this and we are about 15 minutes into the movie and she’s gotten up no fewer than 7 times.

At some point during mass she is jumping up and down on the pews or singing The Wheels on the Bus at the top of her lungs or demanding water/goldfish/jellybeans/whatever. Last Sunday, the priest said something about Jesus having given his body up for us and in the dead quiet of the church Olivia loudly pronounced, “How sad.” After nearly every song she claps loudly and asks, “All done?”

Don’t get me wrong, some of that’s just funny. I’ll admit there have been many times when I had to turn my head or bury my head in my hands and just laugh, shoulders shaking, trying so hard not to let her see that I think she’s funny.  

But sometimes it’s just exhausting. Like this morning when she was making weird noises with her mouth. And have you ever been in a Catholic church? They echo. A lot. So, I asked her to stop. So she said “NO!” So, I knelt down and in my Scary Mommy Quiet Whisper said “If your behavior does not improve, do you know what is going to happen?” And my little angel child danced around and in a sing song voice said “TIME OUT! TIME OUT! TIME OUT!”  I was stumped. What now? She knew the consequence and clearly she didn’t give a crap. I was flustered with not knowing how to respond to that. I was flustered that I was trying to enjoy my favorite service and I just couldn’t with all of the NOISE going on. I was just really, really flustered. And embarrassed. Because every time the ladies in front of my glanced back in our direction I just KNEW they were not appreciative of the chaos erupting behind them.  

So, okay, I know what you are thinking, “Doesn’t the church have a nursery she can go to during service?” I get that and several people have asked the question and I’ve often wondered myself why we don’t send her to the nursery so we can enjoy the service.

Today, I realized WHY we don’t send her. And it’s not because we love the pain. We don’t send her to the nursery because we don’t believe that kids belong AWAY from mass. Look, I get it if you send your kid to the nursery. It’s SO distracting to have a munchkin around while you are trying to hear the word of God. And we’ve utilized the nursery a time or two when she was younger. But it just didn’t feel right to me.

We WANT Olivia to be a part of our family during church. Yes, our church does offer a children’s message while the priest is giving his message and I think that’s a great thing. We will encourage her to go to that when she’s old enough. The thing I don’t love about the nursery though is that it’s the WHOLE time. What’s the point of going to church as a family if we aren’t actually together during that time? I want Olivia to grow up knowing that we go church as a family and that we hear the message together and celebrate communion together. And the only way she’s going to learn that and know that is if we just do it—even when it’s a whoopin’.

As I sat there in the pew today with Olivia as she demanded “I want to sing another song!” when the choir was finished, I realized that God speaks to us in so many ways. Yes, I wish I could really pay attention to the message and get something from it. Before we had Olivia, I would bring a notebook and take notes so that I could reflect on what was being said. But that’s not my life right now. Right now, my life with a strong-willed, loud, and sometimes embarrassing two and a half year old. Right now, God needs me to take care of HER. He needs me to teach her that being in church as a family is important. He needs me to teach her reverence and respect and penance and all of those things that are so important to me and even more important to Him. But if she isn’t even in the room, HOW is she going to learn those things?

I kind of imagine that if I had a conversation with God and I told Him, “Look, I’m really sorry that I can’t pay attention very well right now. I mean, my kid is kind of insane during church and I’m lucky if we can get through a service without her announcing that she farted,” I think He would say something like, “Um, do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I didn’t have a hand in the creation of this child? Do you think I don’t know what I challenge you with every time you are here? I know,” And then I would just feel silly for ever thinking that God didn’t already KNOW my heart. That He didn’t already know that I want to pay attention but am busy raising Lady Loco to act like a human being. That He didn’t already know the strong willed personality He gave her. He knows. He’s God for crying out loud.

As for the ladies in the pew in front of me this morning: when church ended, they all turned around and said “She’s so cute!” I looked around for the mother and child they were talking to because I knew it wasn’t me and mine. But it was. And they meant it.  

As we were walking to the holy water fount, an elderly gentlemen patted the top of Oli’s head. And when my kiddo reached her fingertips in the water (instead of trying to immerse herself in it as she has done on every previous visit) and crossed herself, I got choked up. Because THAT’S why we keep Olivia in church with us. Because we know that one day, eventually, after we’ve endured more embarrassment than our junior high years combined, she’ll KNOW our faith. She’ll have a deeper understanding and appreciation for all it means to be a Catholic Christian.  

After church and after I dropped Olivia off, I went to work sporting a smudge of ash on my head. As coworkers stopped to politely tell me, “Excuse me, but you have some dirt on your head,” I was not only reminded of this time of penance but of the time that is my life right now. A time of raising Olivia to have an appreciation and love of this time of year. Of raising her to appreciate the death of our Savior that allows us to call ourselves Christians.

My apologies to anyone in our congregation who is put out with The Boss Lady’s clapping, singing, and announcements of her bodily functions. We’re going to keep coming. After all, we’re trying to raise a Christian woman here! And if spending time in church with her is my penance, then, yeah, I’ll take it.