Chapel Veil

After breakfast, I overheard another fight breaking out because Mary was insisting that she was wearing a chapel veil and John was telling her it was a scarf. I have a large collection of lovely scarves from my single days when I had the energy to manage yet one more piece of pretty, decorative clothing on my person--unlike now when my accoutrement are a baby in a sling, a toddler on my arm, and a heavy diaper bag! So the children use my scarf collection for imaginative play and I'm glad the scarves get good use.

Mary sees that I wear a chapel veil at Mass and has lately begun imitating me: this occasionally results in a screaming match of John saying it is a scarf and Mary saying it is a chapel veil.

I negotiated the fight and peace reigned again. I re-routed John's skating path around where Mary was "praying" while wearing her "chapel veil" (photo above).

And now as I listen, John has wrapped himself in a half dozen scarves and is saying that he is Joseph wearing his coat of many colors, and that his sister is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that they live in heaven together, and that heaven is behind the big curtain in the den. (I have a feeling there is some understandable confusion going on about St. Joseph, husband of the BVM, and Joseph of the Many Colored Coat.)

How precious! I love how children simply imitate what they see. I've never spoken one word to Mary about how women should wear chapel veils. I'm way more irritatingly pedantic with adults than I am with my children because my children simply imitate!

Children's mimicry is also a wonderful tool for refinement of the parental soul because my ugly traits and habits are mirrored back to me in no time at all and I feel deeply ashamed to see my sinful actions coming from a perfectly innocent child.

Postscript: Speaking of Mary praying, I witnessed her doing some praying, as real as a two-year-old can do. Last week after John had his vaccination, he cried on and off all day about how much it hurt. We were at a stationery store when he started up again weeping and, at that point, I simply had to tell him that even if his ouchie really hurt, I needed him to be a brave boy, stop wailing so loudly, and calm down. Mary quickly suggested, "You could pray, John!" John retorted angrily that we had already prayed to his Guardian Angel to help his ouchie stop hurting (which we had done, in the doctor's office), but Mary was undeterred. For about two minutes, she folded her hands and prayed persistently to God, muttering requests that He help her brother stop having an ouchie.

I consider that to be real praying, as much as a two-year-old can envision God listening to her, which makes me think I should internally give more respect to the many times Mary approaches me out of the blue and says, "I want to pray for souls." She pesters me until I say 'yes,' so now I say 'yes,' quickly, which involves sitting her on my lap, we both fold our hands, and I pray for us, "Heavenly Father, we pray for the souls of the faithful departed and for the release of the holy souls in Purgatory. Amen." Then Mary makes the sign of the cross and run off to play. She does this a few times per week. Even though her understanding of God is far less than mine, the value and efficacy of her little prayers is probably far higher than mine because of the purity of her soul.