Two Masses Today

Two Masses in one day! Today was busy. Wednesdays are always busy because I have to get both kids out the door by 7:50 for John's occupational therapy appointment. Right now driving anywhere requires more time because John goes potty right before we leave, right when we get there, as we're leaving there, and as soon as we get home.


After OT, we drove straight to the cathedral downtown for a special Mass being given by Bishop Jugis for local homeschoolers. It was a 45-minute drive and John needed to use the potty when leaving the OT's office, twice more along the drive, and as soon as we parked at the cathedral. It was a hassle, but when one's potty training two-year-old says from the back seat, "Mama, I have a feeling in my body!" one is simply grateful to be pulling over somewhere instead of changing another pair of wet pants.

We were late to the Mass, so I arrived feeling harried. The Mass was a really neat experience because it was full of mothers (and a couple of fathers) and a tremendous number of children. Little ones far outnumbered adults. This made for a loud Mass. Now, these children happened to be a subset of Catholic children far-better behaved than most, but even with well-behaved older kids, the sounds of so many scootching bottoms, toddlers, and babies squealing makes for a din of noise. For once, I felt comfortable just staying in the Mass with my own children's small noises. It had me thinking that maybe this is how Mass used to be for century after century until the prior century's acceptance of contraception and the disgusting ideas of "population control," such that now we have antiseptic Masses with very few children and the remaining adults think that any children who happen to be there need to be silent, no matter how young. It's very sad. I loved the feeling today of a Mass burgeoning with life, and the Bishop was utterly calm and perfectly capable of talking over us.

In the afternoon, John did some school. We had talked a lot about what a bishop is on the way to Mass, so when we got home, we looked up "bishop" in our children's Catholic picture dictionary. We read a book about colors, which John seems to be recognizing much more consistently now. Then we read a book about astronauts, which led to so many interesting discussions trying to define vocabulary at a two-year-old's level (gravity, mission, space shuttle, and outer space were some of the concepts John asked me about)! Later we went online to the NASA television website to watch some videos of shuttles taking off and landing.


That endeavor led to interesting explanations of computer lingo. John was asking specific questions about the mouse icon when it is a pointing finger, when it is an hourglass, what is happening when a video is downloading or the computer freezes. John has long been interested in working the computer and can do more than I give him credit for, but I always shoo him away from the computer. I'm wondering if I can/should start actually allowing him to type, what a mouse is, how to "click," and so forth. I've certainly heard of two- and three-year-olds who can use computers!


Also, I talked through the first part of the story of Adam and Eve, which is as much as I could get through while holding John's attention. We were looking at an illustration of the Garden of Eve and John asked what the volcano was, so that led to an interesting explanation.

I introduced the Montessori geometric solids. I simply let John manipulate all of them and he would imitate me running my hands all over them. I didn't give them names yet, but John and I discoursed about their different properties. He pointed out quickly that round shapes could roll, but the shapes with sharp edges just "tumbled." It was actually really neat to watch his mind working.

All in all, I think we covered religion, computer science, geometry, natural science, and art.

[Edit: I published this post without finishing my story!] In the evening, we went to a second Mass, this time as a family. Our parish has been building a new church for about a year and it was rumored that we had our certificate of occupancy, making that night's Latin Mass the first Mass to be in the new church. So we showed up for it, but, alas, the C of O had not been procured, so we attended Mass in the cafeteria-turned-church, as usual. It's always a good thing to attend a Mass, but you can imagine it was a "bit" tiring to go through the rigamarole of two tiny tots in Mass twice in one day. Mary is just getting to a tough age, with lots of angry screaming because I hold her instead of allowing her to play.

It was a busy, good day!