Max at Mass

This weekend, we had a professional family picture taken for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. Trying to get 20 people together at one time can be difficult, so the shot was planned for Sunday morning, meaning that we needed to find a church with a Sunday evening Mass.

Enter Holy Spirit Parish in St. Paul. According to www.masstimes.org (an indispensable tool in our bag of tricks), they had a 5:00pm Sunday Mass. Great! So we arrived to see that the church is beautiful- brick and stone with stained glass windows, tabernacle front and center ... and, uh oh, great (echo-y) acoustics, perfect for a wound-up 2-year-old! We were one of maybe four families there that had small children, and definitely the only ones with such a performer as Max.

Here is a sampling of what the other parishioners were treated to during Mass-

The gathering hymn was "All Are Welcome", which Max sang repeatedly throughout the service (especially when everything was silent), using his personal rendition of "All America, All America!"

Paul whispered to Max to please take his finger out of his nose, which was met with a response of "Take ME out to the BAAALLL-GAME, take ME out to the CROWWWWD!" at full volume.

Out of the blue, he said "What the heck? Macky say what in the heck?" I tried in vain to not react, knowing that a strong reaction would just cause a repeat performance... apparently I am not good at hiding my feelings because he looked at me, giggled, and said even louder "Macky say WHAT in the HECK??" (Where does he hear these things?)

I will be glad to return to St. Joseph's next Sunday, a parish overflowing with small, rambunctious children- where we are just one family of many who are trying to juggle crazy kids. There, we are the rule instead of the exception. There, 75% of the cars in the parking lot are minivans. There, we feel at home.