St. Patrick's Parish Picnic

Last night was the third in a row that Mary had a very rough night sleeping, waking me many times. I don't know what is going on (can't feel any second-year molars breaking through), but I did know when I woke up this morning that I lacked the energy to get us all to eight o'clock Mass. We changed plans to attend nine o'clock Mass at the cathedral. Too bad that Mass actually starts at 9:30! We had some time to use up when we arrived.

After Mass, John asked to see "the statue of the Baby Jesus," so we took him to what we thought he meant, and then we loaded in the car to leave. It was there that he asked to go see the statue of Baby Jesus and it became clear that he had meant another statue, but we really didn't want to unload the children and walk the two blocks back to the church. We told John no, began driving home, and Chris and I became engrossed in conversation. Ten minutes later, we suddenly became aware of quiet weeping in the back seat. John was still crying his heart out about not having seen the statue of Baby Jesus. We actually pulled over, it was so alarming! It just so happened that the cathedral was having a parish picnic that afternoon, so we asked John if he'd like to go back for the picnic later and then we could seek out the statue of the Baby Jesus. He was able to calm down then . . . but just barely.

So, at four o'clock we took a potluck dish and made our way back to St. Patrick's. The first thing that surprised us is that John leapt onto a swing and began swinging away contentedly, saying "whee!" over and over. This is amazing because he has hated the sensation of swinging since he was a baby and we think this is the first time ever that he's willingly sat on a swing and enjoyed it.

And this was Mary's first time swinging in a Big Kid Swing (no baby seat), and she did just fine.

John showed new bravery again by climbing onto this dome . . .

. . . and then standing on the tippy top of it (with Daddy spotting him below). Really, by watching how John now eagerly approaches adults and children to talk, leads in groups while playing, and climbs on playground equipment, one would never guess how extremely cautious he was for his first two-and-a-half years or so.

Then John knocked our socks off by requesting to go down the giant homemade water slide. We hadn't known there would be water activities, so we hadn't brought the children's swim suits. John loved it and went down about five times! Meanwhile, Mary desperately wanted to go down, but I was hesitant because the slide was about 100-feet long and descended a steep hill. I saw some children perhaps two-and-a-half years old going down, but not one and a half like Mary, and neither parent was willing to take her down since we had no swim suits. I even spoke to the woman running the slide and she was hesitant too, so Mary didn't get to go--even though y'all know she'd have loved it and done great!

After playing, eating, and more playing, we packed up to leave. Chris took Mary to the van while I escorted John through the church looking for the statue of the Baby Jesus, which had started it all. We searched every nook and cranny of the church without finding the statue. John was able to describe it to me in detail, insisted it was at "the St. Patrick church," and that he saw it "today" (although he still mixes up today, next year, when the dinosaurs lived, five minutes, twelve hours, sixteen years, and so forth, so "today" isn't reliable).

Three minutes after departing the church, there was silence from the back seat. A good day had by all!