Spoiler Alert: He Came Back

My first goal in keeping this little blog is to delight my children.  I'm the lazy mother who has never donned a pair of scalloped scissors to cut the edges of cute pictures of my children and paste them in their baby books.  Nobody here has a baby book.  And I'm not a great cutter and paster, anyway.  I cannot recall on demand or find documented reference to anyone's first word, the day he took a first step, or when he lost his first tooth (but I can tell you that it was much later than anyone else in their entire peer group--to correspond with their genetic delay in actually getting a first tooth such that we really and truly had our toothless toddler's mouth x-rayed because we--the parents AND the dentist--wondered if maybe there weren't any teeth there to come in and if maybe we needed to go ahead with the baby dentures).  No worries, though.

I have clear plastic boxes with stuff that I think is special, helpful, important, or otherwise impervious to the trashcan.  I'd like to think that my children sit and shuffle through their plastic boxes-o-stuff the way other children, with more creative and meticulous mothers, turn the pages in their scrap books.  It's the same, right?

Anyway, I write these stories for You, My Children, because you love to read them.  #1, #2, and #3 are not only my muses, you are my intended audience.  For as long as #1 could read aloud, you have loved to sit side by side (all three bottoms in a row) and giggle and cackle and enjoy together these memories I've recorded.  For you.  Mostly, these stories are funny.  There have been exceptions, of course, like here and here.  But, mostly funny, to us.  And this joy is how I'd like for you to remember your childhood, here at home, with Dad and me.  But there are sweet, sweet times, too. . .

Last week, the first day of school was the Feast of the Assumption.  An hour after drop off, the children all gathered in the church to celebrate this feast day and to commence the school year in worship and communion.  Being a first grader is a big deal, you see, because first graders join the big kids and get to sit with their parents at Mass, if they so choose, instead of being required to sit with their teachers in their class rows, like kindergarteners.

As such, I've looked forward to sitting with all three of my little men starting this year.

So, on the way to school, I asked #3 if he knew that he could sit with me at Mass this year.  He said, "yes" he knew it, but that he would probably opt to just sit with his class.  Subtext:  I'm big, I'm strong, I don't need to sit with my Mommy.  Sub-subtext:  I've only got 11 more years under your roof, before college, so I've got to exercise my independence and test my boundaries early, because I'm pretty sure you may resort to installing baby cams in my dorm room.  To which I respond:  Checkmate, First Grader.

Oh, my heart.  Oy, my Jewish mother's heart.

Gulp.  "Of course, Son, whatever you like."

As the school children gathered in the sanctuary and my two older boys found me in my usual pew, I started to get all silly teary eyed, thinking that by his own preference, my baby was sitting across the church from me, instead of scootched up beside me in my pew-nest.  So, I got up, exited the pew, genuflected, walked across the church to his class rows, genuflected, entered his pew, whispered to ask if he might like to join us, was refused, reassured him that it was cool, exited that pew, genuflected, walked back to my own pew, genuflected, and sat down between my older boys.  My heart and my genuflecting thighs only slightly throbbing from the effort.

Then. . .just as the Mass bell was about to ring out. . .peeking from behind the column, bordering our pew to the left, was the little First Grade face that belonged with us.  He changed his mind.

So, Dear Muse and Young Reader, while this story is a little funny in its own way, I want this story to be my official scrap book blog post entry to record the First Day of First Grade, a day you made your mother so very happy.  I can't really put this in your clear plastic box, so I'm putting it here.