Just one more place to which you should not take a two-year-old

DH's grandpa died and the funeral was held today. DH did not want to take the kid. I didn't want to take her either, but I felt that taking her was the right thing to do. Kids have to learn about these things sometime and plus, if we didn't take her along everyone would just ask where she was anyway. The good news is that there was not an open casket. P's grandpa died on Friday and was found on Tuesday, so that should answer all of your questions right there.

Grandpa Ray was Catholic so it did not come as a suprise to us that the funeral was held at a Catholic church. I told A that this was an important day and that she needed to be QUIET. I was armed with 421 Nemo fruit snacks in hopes it would get us through the service. We had about 45 minutes of visitation time prior to the service, though. I chased A around so that P could visit with his relatives. She made several loops through the reception area, through the church, went careening past the casket, and tried to play the organ.

And then she saw it. A statue of the Virgin Mary, in which Mary is wearing long, draping garb. The kid sucked in her breath and then said (loudly), "A PRINCESS!" We attend a Unitarian Universalist fellowship so needless to say she has not been exposed to the mother of Jesus until now.

Things didn't get much better during the service. She "read" the hymnal upside down, dropped her Spongebob sippy cup, ate a fruit snack pack and loudly announced the color of each piece, and had several tantrums of varying degrees. We took her out of the sanctuary into the lobby area. She ran around, ran up and down the stairs, found an elevator and somehow set off an elevator alarm of some sort, spent two minutes in time out for kicking (I always feel like we are giving hockey penalties: "TWO MINUTES FOR HIGH STICKING, TWO MINUTES FOR HIGH STICKING.")

The service was only about an hour but it seemed longer somehow. (To my Catholic peeps - what's up with the whole up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down thing? It gets old pretty fast.)

Finally it was over. Well, not really. We were invited to a luncheon so we went. My sister-in-law and I immediately ordered drinks with the assumption that our husbands would look after the children. Their child is only 6 months old so she doesn't cause that much of a commotion yet. After seeing A's antics today, I have a feeling that my sister-in-law went home and tried to shove her kid back into her womb.

A did a lot more running around and we heard lots of comments like:

She sure is a pistol! (Yep, that's one of the names we call her.)

She's fast!

Um, I don't think you're going to catch her.

She has a lot of energy, huh?

When we thought we had stayed for a respectable amount of time, we headed home and put the kid down for a nap. We prayed that a) she would sleep and b) none of our elderly relatives are thinking of passing on to the sweet hereafter anytime soon.

Comments

Drasch23 said…
So funny. I hope spot is good.

FYI, I always ask dave why church has to be "STAND UP SIT DOWN FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT".
July 28, 2007 at 12:04 AM
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