The Mass-adventures of the Anderson Toddlers

Boy, was Mass today excruciatingly awful.

Not, mind you, the Mass itself. I wouldn't know, because I only witnessed about 10 minutes of it. And that was the part where we processed into the church with our palms and where I did the 2nd reading and the prayers of the faithful.

This was the absolute worst my 2 toddlers have ever been at Mass. They were fine while we processed in. But once we got inside, my goodness, were they a handful.

I made the mistake when we got our palms of explaining to my almost-3-year-old that the palms were for waving to Jesus. When we got inside the church, he spent the first 2 or 3 minutes waving his palm toward the front of the church loudly saying "Hi Jesus" over and over and over again.

When I finally got my oldest to stop saying "Hi Jesus", the 1-year-old started squirming, and kicking, and yelling. We got both kids to calm down just long enough for me to go up to do my lector thing for the 2nd reading. But when we got to the Gospel, I knew the boys were done for good. No way were they going to sit still and be quiet for that long of a reading.

So, while my wife stayed in the pew, I removed both children to outside. Where they continued to make noise that was clearly audible inside. Unfortunately, the oldest was yelling so loud, that my wife heard him from within and came out of the church to calm him down.

After a while, we got both kids calm enough so that we could go back inside for me to lector the prayers of the faithful. After which, I had to promptly remove them again because of their disruptive behavior.

So, the kids and I basically missed all but about 10 minutes of what is one of my favorite Masses -- Palm Sunday. At least my wife was able to participate in a majority of the Mass.

Stay tuned next week for the Mass-adventures of my 2 beautiful (but wildly rambunctious) boys, where I hope my report will be either short or non-existent.