When Having Poorly-Behaved Children is Your Apostolate

They sure are cute, aren't they? The little monkeys...

Adorable, ridiculously smart, and stubborn as mules. They do so well behaving almost everywhere we go - the library, the playground, other people's houses, the grocery store...

Then Sunday rolls around. And their behavior is an entirely different story.

Honestly, since we've figured out a few different work-arounds, it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. Were I to come up with a parenting motto it would probably be, "The days are long, the years are short, and don't be afraid to tag team Mass for as long as you need to."

So we split up, we tag team, we make sure that the twins never ever ever sit together or are even in the same pew - usually they're not even in church at the same time! My mom takes two kids to the main church and I take the other three to the chapel, where Mass is usually streaming on a TV and I don't have to worry about Father commenting about how "unusually noisy" the children at Mass happened to be today (side note, this is one reason why I LOVE priests who always celebrate Ad Orientem, that is facing the tabernacle, because it means they generally don't see our walk of shame when we have to take out multiple misbehaving children. There's beautiful theological and traditional significance as well, obviously...).

And yet we still have days like today, when the chapel is closed and we cram ourselves into the main church and Peter sneaks away down the pew to steal someone's Magnificat every time I turn away from him to correct Mary Claire for spitting in my purse, lying on the floor, yelling at a stranger for sitting too close to her, etc. Why does my 1.5-year-old love strangers so much???

I've decided that maybe we're just that family with ill-behaved children every Mass because somebody else needs to feel better about their kids. Maybe their squirmy toddler made them anxious, and then they saw mine leafing through the hymnal squealing, "DADA! DADA! Ah-LOO-ya!!!" and they loosened up a little!

Goodness knows my pride certainly can't handle perfectly-behaved children, after all. But eventually they all grow up and it's not my problem whether they're picking their noses in the pew!

I don't know that What I Wore Sunday is happening these days... I might just start my own weekend linkup, since it was so successful when I hosted for those few weeks, and I need consistency to help me keep posting! If I posted at noon on Sundays like before, would you link up? 

9.5 week belly. 6th baby. Let's be real, that's basically what I looked like before, anyway...