Excommunicated

I'm not proud to say it, but, I would be lying if I said we go to church every weekend. And, it isn't because we aren't religious; we tell our kids about God and Jesus and try to raise them to be good Christians. It's because we can't seem to survive a 60 minute mass without disrupting everyone else.

I can hear the doubt. And, I don't blame you. "She's just exaggerating. . . how bad can it be?"

It always starts out well enough. Let's take this weekend. We showed up at church early and were pleased to see a band complete with drums and electric guitar setting up. Huge for our little congregation in rural Massachusetts. Hannah was swaying to the music. Mikie was standing, maybe not reverently, but, still. We made it through the readings to the homily, at which point the deacon called all the kids up to the front. Mikie was reluctant, but, knowing that Hannah wanted to go, played the Big Brother and guided her up to the front. He even participated, volunteering that you needed to eat "Peanut Butter on Toast" in response to Deacon Frank's question, "What do we need to eat to be healthy?"

By the time my two cherubs returned to our pew, I admit I was thinking, "This isn't so bad. We should do this every week."

FAMOUS. LAST. WORDS.

We probably COULD go every week if we found a parish where mass lasted 30 minutes. Alas, I haven't found a Catholic Church that finishes a mass in less that 45 minutes. During that second 30 minutes, which are arguably the more SOLEMN 30 minutes of mass, all hell broke loose. Hannah started screaming, kicking and flailing in that way that makes me look like I am trying to abduct her. We walked out to the vestibule three times that I can consciously remember. The last time, we breezed back into our pew just in time to say the "Our Father". As Mikie pushed my hand away like I had cooties, demanding to know when we could leave, my lips were praying the "Our Father", but my head was praying, "Dear God, grant me patience to get through mass without killing my children."

And, when I thought it couldn't get worse, my lowest parenting moment to date. As the priest says, "Deliver us Lord from every evil. . . ", Hannah looks at me with a big grin, thumps her chest with her little fist and proudly shouts, "I EVIL." As if to say, "hey, he's talking about ME!"

Trying desperately to recover, I said, in a loud whisper, "No, Hannah, you're not evil. You can be a good girl." But, while she may be trouble, she wasn't dumb. And, by this point my body and mind were so depleted that I couldn't muster enough energy to sound convincing.

The rest of the mass was a blur. I managed to juggle Hannah up the aisle for communion, found a few minutes of relative peace to take a break from praying for sanity and pray for other's intentions, and, head bowed, corralled my brood out of church during the closing recessional as quickly as possible. As we left, one of the deacons unconvincingly commented that Hannah "wasn't so bad" and offered her a high five. Hannah's response: she left him hanging, with nothing more to remember her by then her signature scowl.

We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, two kids sedated with "Tom & Jerry" cartoons and air conditioning blasting, trying to recover. Before I end, I feel it only appropriate to explain why Hannah referred to herself as "evil". While I admit to calling her "Trouble #2", I was not the one to come up with the moniker "evil". We owe our thanks to Disney and Mikie. He has become an avid fan of "Phineas and Ferb". Dr. Doofenshmirtz refers to everything as evil. So, Mikie will occasionally refer to Hannah as "evil Dr. Hannah" and "The Evil Midi" (I have no explanation as to why he calls her Midi). I do accept guilt for not breaking him of this habit.

Rest assured, eight years of Catholic school has worked well at instilling guilt. I am confident we will return to church again this year. I just need to find a better way of instilling fear and submissiveness in the hearts of my kids before we do.

Love, The (evil) Trahans