“M-o-o-o-m! There’s a hole in my sock!”
It was Sunday morning, 20 minutes before Mass, and our household was a-flutter with our four children scurrying about donning church clothes, brushing teeth, and fixing hair.
My eight-year-old son was in his room, half-dressed, with a sock on one foot and disdainfully holding up the matching holey one. “I can’t wear this holey sock to church!” he cried.
Every Lent — thanks to an idea I found years ago on a Catholic blog listed below — we set up a crown of thorns in our living room. It’s just a small brown vine wreath covered with toothpicks, but it has a very specific purpose.
Each time one of my children performs a small sacrifice, or does something nice for someone else, he or she gets to pull a thorn from the crown of thorns.
One by one, the number of thorns dwindles, leaving the vine wreath bare. On Easter morning, the crown of thorns, now void of toothpicks, is covered with beautiful flowers, a symbol of how God took away our hurtful sins and replaced them with beauty of eternal life.
Before embarking on any trip, in my family it is a common custom for my husband or myself to ask, “Is everyone wearing shoes?” before we start the car.
This custom developed after I drove to the grocery store one day and discovered one of our children clad only in bare feet.
Recently, as my husband asked this customary question of our four children in the car, he decided to test their attentiveness as well.
What does sitting down and playing the preschool game Hungry Hungry Hippos have to do with your spiritual life? Living in the moment and keeping the presence of God, if you are the parent of young children.
That’s what I figured out one day while considering the laundry piling up, all the cleanouts and projects I had put on hold due to Christmas preparations, a growing pile of dishes in the sink, floors and carpets that needed cleaning, plus impending chores of offering homework help after school and policing and transporting children to basketball practice.
In addition, I was just feeling a bit down after all the hub-bub of the holidays.
“I can’t do it!” my four-year-old son cries out in frustration as he suddenly scrunches up his artwork to his chest.
His masterpiece, a brightly colored partially crayoned alphabet, is now a ball of crumpled paper, mashed beyond redemption.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to calm his tears. “I can help you.”
Slowly I coax the ruined masterpiece from my son’s angry fingers, smooth the jagged creases, place my hand over his to guide the creation of the letters he’d wanted to be just so.
“You are still learning,” I tell him. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Not long ago, dear friends of ours tragically had to lay their tiny precious baby, Maria, to rest.
At her funeral, Maria’s brothers helped carry her small white casket and her sister followed with a bouquet of roses. My friends and their toddler walked behind, supporting each other through tears.
At 32 weeks, Maria had unexpectedly died in the womb. Since then, my friends have been shouldering unimaginable suffering, wondering if they will ever again be free of the incomparable grief of parents who lose a child.
My six-year-old daughter clutched her daddy’s hand as they walked side by side through the woods one day.
Suddenly, a black and yellow snake slithered across their path, startling my daughter. She gasped in fear and squeezed her daddy’s hand.
Her daddy, my husband, patted her hand gently and said, “Don’t worry. Garter snakes won’t bite you. They’re just looking for crickets to eat.”
“Mom, won’t you be lonely when we all are at school?” my son asked me innocently one day, true concern spilling from his deep brown eyes.
At the time, I smiled and assured him that of course I would miss my children, but I would get lots of work done and the time would go by so fast that before I knew it, they would all be home in the afternoon.
The face of my four-year-old scrunched up as he sounded out a word in a book. “Gah,” he said, successfully figuring out the sound of the letter “G.”
He considered the next letter, “O,” thought a moment, then said, “Ahh.”
Finally he got to the last letter, “D,” and put the sounds together. “Gah-ahh-dd,” he said slowly, enunciating each letter individually, his eyebrows knit in concentration.
“Gahd.”
Suddenly, his eyes flew open, his eyebrows shot up, and the light of understanding emanated from his joyous grin as he shouted out, “God! It says God!”
I sat down in the midst of my children today and did Morning Prayer aloud.
Never mind that it was already 10:30 a.m. Never mind that the two little ones were giggling and grabbing markers from each other at the kitchen table.
Never mind that the older ones still needed to empty the dishwasher and take out the recycling and I still needed to start the laundry.
Never mind that we needed to pack a lunch for our day of running errands and playing at the park.
