Cry Room Chronicles V

This Sunday, we made it to church with plenty of time to spare. Jacob asked if we'd see our friends Brian and Teresa there. Since we went to the Clarksville Picnic yesterday (held on the church grounds) and saw them there, he assumed they'd be there today. Alas, they don't go to the 8 a.m. Mass. Maybe after they have their first child, their Mass habits may change.

As usual, we were the first in the children's chapel and had to turn on the lights and TV. We didn't hear any sound, but once Mass started we could hear everything. Our friends with the two boys came in a little later. At one point, the younger boy was sobbing uncontrollably. The father took him to a corner (presumably for a time out or cool down). The corner treatment wasn't making a change. The dad took his son out to walk him around in the hall. I guess it has to be pretty bad if you're taken out of the cry room for crying. Personally, it wouldn't have bothered me if they'd stayed, since that's the main purpose of the room.

Another example of misbehaving came from Lucy. Crawling around wasn't so bad until she decided to crawl over and stick her finger in the socket. Luckily, it was an Ethernet socket. Considering it a bad precedent, I told her "no playing with the socket" and dragged her away. She cried. Then she crawled back and tried that socket and the electrical outlet. I wound up covering both with my hands, much to the chagrin of Lucy and the laughter of Angie.

Angie was also happy to see Jacob playing with the older boy, who had a little bucket of dinosaurs. They looked at the dinosaurs together and discussed anatomy and such. Boy: "This is triceratops." Jacob: "Triceptops." Boy (producing new dinosaur): "It's a triceratops." Boy's mom: "No, it's a unatop." (I'm guessing it had only one horn?) Boy: "Feel his spiky back." Jacob: "Spiky back!" Boy: "There's his tail." Jacob: "That's his foot." And so on.

When the sign of peace came, I got to shake the dinosaur's foot. Also, the younger boy shook hands with me; when Angie tried to shake his hand, he gave her a look like she was a dinosaur ready to stomp him into the ground. Maybe next week she'll get a handshake.

This week, I was able to hear most of the homily, in spite of monitoring Jacob's playing with the other boy. Father said this week's gospel always makes him nervous. Jesus seems to be short and/or bad tempered with people who are going to be his disciples. One asks to bury his father before he follows Jesus, to which Jesus replies, "Let the dead bury the dead." Another says he wants to go home and say goodbye to his family; Jesus basically says he's unworthy of the kingdom of God. Father asked in his homily, was Jesus just having a bad day? Was he more loving and kind (like the typical idea we have of Jesus) the next day? Or is this really consistent with the good news He proclaimed? After considering some possibilities, Father came up with an answer. A lot of people look at faith in Christ as one of many different things in their lives: job, family, leisure, religion, exercise. For a Christian, this attitude is completely wrong. God isn't just for an hour on Sunday. He's not one of a multitude of goods; He is goodness itself. Nothing should take priority over Him. Not even making sure two kids don't fight over dinosaurs. Father didn't say that from the pulpit, but I can hear it now.

Does every playdate end like this?

I've joined a stay at home parents' group here in Columbia, Maryland, called Parents AT Home or PATH. The group is made up of parents and other caregivers who have decided to stay at home because of the great value it has for the child's or children's development. One of the activities the group promotes is play groups.

Play groups are small groups of similarly aged children who get together once or a few times a week to play together. The group can meet at parents' homes or go out to activities. The group I was placed in is going to the library on Fridays for story time. Also, we met today at my home for a play date, where the kids play together and learn to interact socially, or even just get used to other pint-sized people playing with their stuff.

Our group is small, just three children: Jacob, Chloe and Caroline. We played in the family room since that had the most toys and is the most kid-friendly room in the house. Things went pretty well. The children played together mostly. Occasionally one would wander off to a different part of the room. The headless musical rocking horse was popular but only once did Jacob and Caroline want to ride at the same time. They played with the musical instruments. Chloe would have decapitated one of her playmates if they had been in the line of the cymbal she threw. Whew, no one suffered from separation anxiety this time!

But toward the end of the playdate, Jacob and Chloe were playing with the blocks by the window and we parents weren't paying attention. All of the sudden, Chloe was crying. Well, not at first. She had that open-mouthed, look-like-I'm-crying-with-no-sound-coming-out face for about 20 seconds and then she hit the high notes. I think Jacob might have whacked her with the block cart, but there was no real evidence. Her mom comforted her. Caroline came over to give Chloe a kiss and hug, but she tripped on the way. Then she started crying in pitch with Chloe. I watched for Jacob to fall next. He didn't. I picked up Jacob. Chloe began to calm down. Chloe's mom brought her over to Jacob to give him a kiss. I was bending over holding him. Chloe clonked my head and started crying again. We parents had a good laugh; I hope the kids understood. We decided playdate was over.

I hope all playdate don't end this way. I hope even more that it wasn't just this play date that ended this way!