Memories Monday -- A Test of Faith or Something

I never really liked being a Unitarian.  The church didn’t have candles or statues or stained glass windows.   The minister and choir didn’t even wear robes.  In Sunday School we talked about helping other people (boring), taking care of the earth (depressing), and ending war (terrifying).  The potluck dinners were nice, though.

At home we had a tree and stockings for me and the dog and cat at Christmas, but when I wanted to get a manger scene, my mother said, “We don’t do that.”  The church had a Christmas Eve service and sang carols, but it was more like a hootenanny.

Julie, my college roommate, was the daughter of an Episcopal priest and when I went home with her one weekend, of course she had to go to church and I went with her.  I was fascinated.  Back at school, I started going to the Episcopal church.  Everyone was very nice and the church ladies made a big fuss over me, which I ate up. (My mother was not a fusser).  I got to know Father Bill and his family and by the next visit by the Bishop I’d been baptized and was ready to be confirmed.
My parents didn’t come to either service because I didn’t tell them.  By that time I was dating Ed and he gave me a beautiful cross and took me out for a fancy lunch.

When my parents found out, my father snorted about “a ridiculous phase.”  My mother told her Unitarian friends that she was too embarrassed to tell my grandparents and they told her that at least it was only “intellectual drugs” and not the illegal kind.    I wrote in my diary that I “identified” with all those Christians who had been “persecuted for their faith.”  (What can I say?  I was nineteen.)

So I always said I would never give the children a hard time if they weren’t happy with the Episcopal Church.

Then Cilla decided she wanted to be a Catholic.

 

 

They're back!

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Meet the McDonalds has been on hiatus.  Charlie and the gang went to Disney World.  I went to the hospital with a broken hip.  Everyone is home now.  The McDonalds are back to the routine of work, school, after school, church,  and Girls' Night In.  I have developed a new routine, for the time being, consisting of reading, therapy, and Law and Order Special Victims Unit, Friends, and Sex and the City on television.



Memories Monday -- It's that time again!

Right in the middle of the wedding planning, it was time for Back to School, the unofficial holiday between the Fourth of July and Halloween. There were paper leaves and cardboard school bells and apples all over the stores and back to school ads on TV, with kids dancing and singing as if new clothes and backpacks made up for losing their freedom.  They do help, of course.
I got Ed to take care of Josh; I knew he would get everything done quickly and efficiently.  So we went in separate cars, a jolly caravan of consumers.

Shopping with two girls is one of those experiences that “challenge you to grow,” as my mother used to say when I complained about having to do something.  I tell the children to “offer it up.”  And I was given a lot to offer.

Cilla and her friends have decided that “if it isn’t pink, they’re not wearing it.”  And on the first day, everything had to be totally pink.  After that they would condescend to wear contrasting pants or skirts.

Betsey told me I was “spoiling her” and looked superior until I reminded her of the year she and her friends wore purple all day every day; even their pajamas had to be purple.

I shouldn’t have said anything because Cilla decided that she needed pink pajamas and wanted to call her friends right now, please, please, please so they could get some too.

I told her we would get the pajamas now, but she’d have to wait until we got home to call her friends.

Betsey was a little easier, since she doesn’t have a bust or interest in boys yet.  She needed five pairs of jeans, a variety of tops, some with sayings I didn’t understand, but which she assured me weren’t naughty, and some sweaters for me to nag her to take with her, even if she didn’t wear them, because it could get chilly.

All around us mothers were squabbling with daughters and exchanging eye rolls.  It was a real sisterhood moment.

The girls wanted to stop at McDonald’s to celebrate their haul, but I told them that it wouldn’t be fair to Daddy and Josh, but we’d have pizza tonight.

On the way out of the mall, we stopped at the bulk candy store for the first candy corn and pumpkins of the season.

I said a prayer of thanksgiving that the girls didn’t see the McDonald’s wrappers in the trash when we got home.  Fortunately, Josh forgot to wave his Happy Meal monster in their faces.

Sometimes you get a break.