I started crying on Friday evening.

Jacob received his First Holy Communion a few Saturdays ago. He and his classmates have been preparing for months. I have been complaining. There were too many notes home, too many books to read, too many meetings, too much money, too much fuss, too much arguing about ties, too much too much too much. After all, I argued, this is just the first of many. It isn't that big a deal. The important thing is what happens for the next 80 years of his life. I kept working on whittling it down to size.

Then I went shopping for his gift. That was the beginning of the end. I was standing there in the huge Catholic Supply store (because I suppose it takes many supplies to be Catholic) with my mother when she said, "Christy, it's his First Communion."

My throat was closed by a seven pound lump and I whispered, "I know. I know!" I left Mom standing next to one of six special First Communion displays. I browsed through the crucifixes until I stopped crying. I went back to pick up a white embossed memento box and met Mom at the cards. As soon as I read the first card, I was off crying again. We eventually managed to actually purchase a few things and headed home.

The next morning, Jacob started trying to get dressed three hours before the big event. I told him that he could put on his brand new white shirt and tie no sooner than 9:05. He spent the rest of the morning wandering into the kitchen every 3-4 minutes to check the time. By 9:20, Jake and I were on our way out the door. The rest of the family was to meet us at church after the picture sessions were over. "Are you excited?" I asked him. He nodded, then slipped his hand into mine. He held my hand all the way to church. He's a big kid now but he knows that every once in a while, I still need him to be my baby boy.

5 Joys of Parenting

Mary tagged me with this and it's taken me a few days to be in the right frame of mind to tackle it. Jacob is on spring break and is therefore bored out of his gourd, my diet is stalling out, Nick is writing term papers, pick your reason. It's been a long week. But! I have just about managed to free my inner Pollyanna and end this week on a good note. So, without further ado, I present 5 things I love about parenting:

1. Little League. No, I am not living vicariously through my child. It turns out that an hour at the ball field is a rollicking good time. I sit next to my husband for a whole hour. I talk to friends. I watch the occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking moments on the field. I yell, "Wooooooooo!" or "It's ok! You'll get it next time!" I hold my breath whenever the uncoordinated kid goes to bat, hoping that this time he manages to hit the ball. And when he does, I leap to my feet and roar with the rest of the parents. At the end of the night, I am grinning like a fool. The first game of the year is on Tuesday. I cannot wait.
2. Confidence in my own abilities. In my childless days I assumed that if I wanted to learn a new skill, I had to enlist an expert to teach me. My kids have taught me that I can figure out almost anything. I can make a Halloween costume from a picture in a comic book. I can decorate a cake to look like a clown. I can fix a bike. I can speak entirely in rhymes for an hour. And it's not because I'm particularly talented or intelligent - it's because a child believes that I can.
3. Singing. Having very small children is a great excuse to sing at any time. I love to sing and there are only a limited number of situations in which singing is an option. Add a child to the equation and that number expands exponentially. And they sing too!
4. Poetry. Children, especially when they are learning to speak, are astonishingly poetic. They don't have a large vocabulary so they have to use their small vocabulary creatively. "I'll make my feet whisper," Claire told me the other day when I said her jumping would wake up Daddy. When Jacob was feeling anxious, he told me that his heart was "bouncing around." They just throw these phrases around like they're nothing and then wonder why I am smiling.
5. Jokes. What does a bunny sing at a birthday party? Hoppy birthday to you! It just doesn't get better than that.

I'm tagging Cheri, Chelsea, Sara, and Lisa (but I'll be patient since she's having a baby right this very instant).

The whole story

I was in the shower at 6:15 this morning when the bathroom door banged open. I heard the toilet seat hit the tank. "Good morning, Jake!" He grunted back at me then walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. About 30 seconds later, Claire started screaming. I ducked my head under the water and pretended not to hear anything.

A few minutes later, Claire skipped into the bathroom as chipper as can be. I stepped out of the shower, mistakenly believing that the coast was clear. Jake came roaring into the bathroom complaining, "Claire hit me, kicked me, and bit me twice!"

"Are you bleeding? Did you lose a finger?" I asked. Jacob shook his head. "Then get out of here and we will discuss it when I am dressed. He left in a huff, mumbling about the injustices of the world and the plight of innocent, bitten boys.

A little while later, I peeked my head into the kids' room and asked, "Claire, did you hit, kick, and bite your brother?" She instantly put on her Lying McLiarson face and protested. "Don't lie to me. Did you hit, kick, and bite your brother?"

She smoothly shifted tactics. "My brother?" she asked, her little eyebrows furrowing together in faux confusion.

"Yes, your brother Jacob. Did. You. Hurt. Him?" I raised my voice in frustration. Jake heard me and scurried into the room, his mouth moving as fast as his feet. Claire, realizing that she was cornered, attempted to cry. She covered her eyes with her hands and wailed, then checked her hands for tears. They were dry. So she poked her fingers in her eyes to make real tears.

As my blood pressure approached record levels, Jake realized that it was only a matter of time before Claire spilled the whole story. He blurted out, "Well, I didn't know she was on the couch when I sat on her!"