Another year of VBS, and some baby knitting...

This morning I dropped Henry off for his first day of Vacation Bible School at our parish. He acted a bit shy, but was happily playing Bible Bingo when I left. The theme this year is national park-related, and Henry's age range is the beaver group, how cute is that?

Mike was relieved to have his mornings free for five days, so I'm happy that this eases his load a bit. Well, "free" as in one less child running around, but he still has Anne, who is a full fledged terror at this point. If it can be climbed, she will climb it. And probably fall off of it. And when you forcibly take her off of it, she will whine and complain and cry all the day long. She's been very challenging of late. VERY CHALLENGING.

As for me, I can finally post my baby knitting, since my sister's baby shower was this past weekend. I made 2 hat and sweater sets, one in pumpkin and one in blueberry:

A Dreamcatcher Baby Blanket:

And 3 sets of matching bibs and wash cloths with animals on them, like this duck set:

I had fun.

Our Catholic children, part whatever...

Because I've lost count :) But I blog frequently about raising our little soldiers for Christ in the Catholic Church, taking them to Mass, and all of the things that we do at home to instill the faith. It's important stuff. Our holy calling. *puffs out chest* There's my precious guy at left last week at VBS, with his little frog name tag :) We had a rain forest theme for VBS this year. Anyway...

My friend Cam over at A Woman's Place... (as I caught up on all of last weeks action in Google Reader; I had over 150 new posts!) wrote about how stressful it is to take both a toddler and an infant to Mass and manage them both. To top it all off, there is this potential for mean people to give you the evil eye for your noisy kid and make you cry. I mean really, the child is 1, or 2, or 3 years old; they have a reason for their behavior. Mean people do not. They're just obnoxious. I thought I would lend my support by revisiting this important topic...

What this all boils down to is the things we do to try our best at our vocation as Catholic parents. This is no easy feat. And there's no guarantee of success. I'm thinking of a great line from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, that Mike and I just re-watched last week (and that I blogged about last year here):

Gimley: "Little chance of success? Near certainty of defeat? What are we waitin' for?!"

It's not easy, no sir. Now that he's approaching 5, and he's noticing that Daddy doesn't go to Mass with us every week, Hank has started lobbying to "stay home with Daddy" on Sundays. I see it as a challenge of the vocation, and I press on.

A few weeks ago, Hank was sick, so I left him home with Mike and went to Mass by myself. I thought it would be great. I mean, seriously. I could do the following:

(1) HEAR. You know, things. Like the readings and the homily. So impossible with a chatty 4 year old in tow.

(2) Relax. AAAHHHHHH. I'm so tense when Hank is with me. It's just like belly dancing with a veil. I don't like to dance with a veil. I dance because I love to dance, and I want others to enjoy my dancing. If I have a veil with me as a prop, it distracts me. I think the quality of my dancing goes down because I'm worried about what my "partner" is going to go. And *at any moment* that veil could, of its own accord, go bad. REAL BAD. It's just like having small children, I tell you. You think you have them trained, and then WHAMO! They humiliate you in public. So I'm always a tad "on guard" at Mass for this very reason.

(3) Remain in the sanctuary for the entirety of Mass. Oh, the bliss. I can stand when the congregation stands, without a surly 4 year old on my lap demanding that I read to him. No fear of extraction of any small melting down bodies. No trips to the potty.

(4) Pray. This comes from the ability to hear myself think, and to relax, see items (1) and (2), supra.

I thought this would be great, right? Well. I got there, in all my relaxed sereneness, and I found that...I missed Hank. Something was definitely missing from my Mass experience. I am the mother of a young Catholic child, and I wanted him there with me, no matter how miserable he makes me on a weekly basis. No matter how much attention he calls to this desperate introvert, I wanted him there with me. Clearly, parenthood has turned us all into sadomasochists.

We gotta stick it out. Somehow. This makes us all stronger witnesses for life. At least this is what I tell myself as I pray that somehow, miraculously, the floor will swallow me up.

My experience at VBS last week was also a good reminder in this regard. As my own son ruined my whole day last Monday and embarrassed me in front of dozens of people, I thought to myself of "The Incident." That would be the worst day in my Catholic parenting career, right there. And from that experience, I learned to think more before I reacted. Child is melting down in Mass= I want to burst into tears and sprint from the room. Instead of giving in to my baser instincts, I need to remain calm. Yes, I will still be somewhat humiliated, but at least I won't inadvertently make the situation that much worse. Last Monday, I longed to call Mike to come and fetch Hank to send him home in disgrace. But I resisted, because I knew that would make the Henry scene that much worse. In the end, it was the right decision, but in the meantime: it sucked. Bad.

We'll get through this trial. Catholic parents: Unite.

VBS Wrap up...

So, my week at Vacation Bible School is complete. I'm both happy and sad :) I did enjoy being at the church everyday this week, and I thoroughly loved what Hank got out of it. Aside from the meltdown incident on Monday, he was exemplary for the rest of the week, and he told me that he "had a vewy good time" at VBS. I beamed with pride when he was one of the children in his age group who already knew his Our Father, and when asked at the closing assembly what his favorite part of the week was, he answered "cwafts." My crafty guy!

I ended up making it through as games coordinator, but it isn't a role I would choose again. The kids were SO worked up to be outside, and it was a challenge even getting them rounded up and paying attention. I helped at crafts on Friday, and I found the kids much more sedate and focused in that environment, such that I could enjoy spending one-on-one time with each and actually teach them something. Overall though, I am glad that I volunteered to help, and I know that my help was appreciated. But it was a long week :) I rather need a vacation from my vacation...

Sunday morning at the 10 am Mass, the kids are going to sing one of their songs for the congregation, and we're very much looking forward to that.

It was a nice week off. And it's hard to believe that July is nearly at an end. It's been pretty warm here. Hank has a weather station in his room that features a "weather boy" icon whose clothes indicate how warm or cold it is outside. The other day, I was in there getting Hank's stuff ready, and I happened to glance over.

"WHOA, Weather Boy." *averts gaze*

Apparently, the heat makes Weather Boy strip down to what appears to be a Speedo. I'm hot too, Weather Boy, but let's not lose all sight of our senses.

I have been able to work on my smaller knitting projects, which I'm very excited about. Long post on that coming next week...

Things my son has learned at VBS...

"Mommy...Why is there an angel sitting on my shoulder? And WHY IS HE ALWAYS WATCHING ME?!" *concerned, knitted brow expression*

I assured him that yes, God does tell us in the Bible that we each have a guardian angel, but that angel isn't a double agent acting as God's spy to tell on us when we do things wrong. Our guardian angel is a good guy. And we don't know whether or not he actually sits on our shoulder. That's a bit of a spiritual urban legend, I think.

"Mommy...God is the shepherd, and we are the sheep." *big, wide eyes*

They are such precious little sponges, aren't they?

VBS update...

Because I know you're all following along on baited breath :) Today went much better. Essentially, yesterday's game was terrible. The kids all hated it, as did I. Since I finally received the materials for the whole week, I was assured that the games improved from that point forward. Today we had a relay with balloon "lambs," and the kids loved it. Plus, I forced the teenagers to be more helpful, and the Director of Religous Ed. came out to assist me today, whereas I was totally on my own yesterday with the surly volunteers.

Henry, under pain of suspension of television privileges, was on his best behavior. I even glimpsed him during the skits session, cap of cotton balls perched firmly on his blond head, playing the part of a lamb. It was too cute for words. Yesterday, I was ready to give him away to the next random person to happen down the street. It was just one of those days.

Interestingly, I found that I enjoyed being with the slightly older kids more than I thought I would. I plan to teach CCD starting next fall, when Hank will start, and one thing I know for certain is that I won't teach his class. I think it confuses him to have Mommy in the teacher role, since he's so unused to that. He needs his space to learn, and I can do my thing in another classroom. That seems to be the model that works best for him. Originally I was thinking that I'd want to teach the kidnergarteners, but these past 2 days, I've realized that those little ones exhaust me just looking at them. Keeping them just corraled is a full-time job, let alone trying to get them to sit down and pay attention. Perhaps my calling is to teach CCD to slightly older kids. It's been an eye opening experience, for sure.

When I picked Hank up today, he told me that he had a great time at Vacation Bible School. Halo perched right on his cute crew cut...

Reporting in from VBS...

Traumatized, but still standing. Yikes. This is harder than I thought it would be :) As I expected, games are not really my cup of tea, but I'm stuck with them, because that's where they needed help and I committed my services. But I didn't get my lesson materials until this morning, and I felt frazzled and underprepared. Today's game didn't engage the kids, and I was sweatin' it. My gaggle of teenaged volunteers was much more interested in their own conversation than with actually helping suffering me. I didn't get my needed Bible verse and reflection until my first group was nearly done, and I was feeling flustered and unhappy.

When Henry's group came out and he decided to throw a temper tantrum because he didn't win, I started worrying that I had somehow offended God and this was my punishment. Because it was pretty miserable, my friends. But I made it. Tomorrow's game looks better, with water balloons involved. But I so, so wish that things go better tomorrow. Prayers needed :)

Off to VBS...

Next week I'm going to be on vacation from work, on a "staycation" of sorts. We're not going to Florida this summer like we usually do to visit my in-laws (they came here instead), so I decided to take a week off anyway. Working on an academic schedule, the summers are the best time to take any significant vacation, and let's face it, we all need to get away from work at least once per year.

So I'm off all next week. I will be volunteering at our parish's Vacation Bible School every morning, and I'm both excited and terribly nervous. Not sure how this one will go. It's the first time I've ever volunteered for something like this, *and* it's the first year my parish has ever run a VBS. I definitely won't be blogging as frequently. We do have high speed Internet, but only a single desk top, and I don't end up using it that much. I will post once or twice next week, so stay tuned for a humorous VBS update :)

We're also going to use the afternoons for fun diversions like taking Hank to a local amusement park and going on play dates. I'll be doing lots of cleaning and knitting. It should be very, very pleasant. Until next week!

Vacation Bible School preparations...

Last night, I had my first foray into preparations for Vacation Bible School at our parish, and I'm super excited. I had missed one meeting previously that fell on the evening of Hank's pre-k graduation, so I was glad to be able to attend yesterday.

I arrived, real prompt-like, and wandered into the school. Sadly, our parish school has closed as of the end of this past academic year. It's been open since 1899 :( Tragic, really. But enrollment had dropped steadily until the parish simply couldn't sustain it anymore. The real problem is that there are 2 other parishes within spitting distance that also have thriving schools, as well as 2 others well within 7 miles or so in either direction. A lot of competition. But the school looked tremendously cute. I definitely would have looked into it for Hank had it stayed open.

Anyway, I get in, and unsurprisingly, as I mentioned yesterday, it was hot. There were a bunch of sweaty teenagers in the room fanning themselves. At first I was confused. *All* of these teenagers are volunteering to help out at Vacation Bible School? It seemed unlikely that so many of them were so eager about the whole thing. I quickly figured things out - they are all Catholic high school students needing community service hours and this is one of their projects. Ah ha.

So, the Director of Religious Education, Becky, materialized and gave us the scoop. The kids will be in attendance from 9 am til noon each day of the week in question, and they will do 5 specific activities each day. Music, Bible stories, crafts, skits, and games. One or more adults will be in charge of each activity, and the teenagers will assist in various ways. Some of them will be put in charge of groups of kids to shepherd them along to each of their activities. Each day a different theme would permeate the day's activities - the parable of the good Samaritan, the lost sheep, etc.

I waited while they went through the mechanics of the teenagers getting their community service credit, and the only other non-teenager there, a retired kindergarten teacher, and I remained to talk to Becky afterward. Before I could get a word in edgewise, the teacher scooped up being in charge of crafts, to which I narrowed my eyes in jealousy. But really, I'm not going to be teaching the kids how to knit, so why should it matter? I wasn't good at art in school, and nothing has changed now. Artistic ability simply eludes me. I waited anxiously for my assignment as Becky and the new craft lady went through each craft and discussed how many cotton balls they needed to make lambs, should they let the kids trace their own hands or pre-cut things? etc. All stuff I desperately wanted to be a part of, mew.

Finally, Becky got to me and asked if I would head up games. As long as I didn't have to do skits I was pretty happy, so I agreed. I asked her what kind of games the kids would be playing, and she launched into a description involving water balloons, lamb tossing, relays, stuff like that. It didn't sound too terrible. And I'm glad that I won't be heading up a group and hence with Hank the whole time. Hank tends to be a bit shy, and with kindergarten approaching, I want him to feel more comfortable without me. He tends to cling when I'm nearby, and I'm glad that he'll be able to socialize with some other adults and kids from our parish. I've always been shy, and I had a hard time with that in school. I don't want to see Hank suffer like that as well.

As we were walking from room to room, we asked Becky a few non-VBS questions, such as the circumstances surrounding the school closing. She remarked that everyone had a hard time with the school closing, and she feared that one of the other nearby Catholic schools was also on the chopping block. She did say that the CCD program is thriving, with four hundred kids enrolled each year. Our parish has a new youth minister, and he's become very popular with the older kids approaching confirmation. He's been very active with them, having them go on retreats and other group activities. This is a good thing. She did mention that so many kids are brought regularly to CCD by their parents to make their sacraments, but never attend Mass. This is so sad. But this was me when I was going through CCD.

CCD starts in first grade at our parish, and I mentioned that once Hank started, I'd like to teach a class. Becky's eyes lit up and immediately, she pounced:

"Really?! Are you afraid of the middle school kids? Because most people are, but that's the grades we always need teachers for."

Well, I kind of am :) My sister, Shauna'h, teaches CCD to 7th and 8th graders in her parish, so perhaps I'll solicit her advice. But to be honest, I was thinking more about the grade school aged children. I'm just so passive, I don't know how effective I'd be with the older kids. We'll see. That's not until next year anyway. I don't want to teach until Hank will also be attending at the same time. Our parish conducts CCD during the week, either Tuesdays or Thursdays (parent chooses which day they prefer) from 6:30-7:45. I don't want to be out of the house on an evening that I would miss Hank-time.

So, overall, it was very interesting. I'm going to be getting all my game specifics in the mail shortly. Becky mentioned that with the school closing, the religious education office is simply trying to keep the parish vibrant and active. We'll see how it goes. But I'm happy to be a part of it.