Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pedantry: Again

I knew I had one pedantic daughter. It appears I have another.

At Mass we usually sit in the front. Advantage: Little Cherub can see what is going on. Disadvantage: a hasty, unobtrusive retreat if Cherub is in uncooperative mood is difficult.

On Sunday, Cherub started to lose the plot during the homily. Hoping to head off the need to take her out, if rifled through my bag for distractions and found a little box of three crayons (a Pizza Hut freebie). Colouring and fiddling about with the crayons kept her happy for a while, until she accidentally dropped a couple of the crayons over the front of the pew, out of my reach. Realising that another lost plot was imminent, I let her walk round to the front to pick them up, hoping she wouldn't make a bid for freedom and run off somewhere she shouldn't (mercifully, she didn't!). She did, however, decide this was a good game and immediately dropped the crayons back over the bench.

Making that quick mental calculation of potential disturbance levels again, I let her collect them a second time. When she returned, I told her firmly "no more dropping the crayons". She waited a couple of minutes, then walked round the bench again and very deliberately put the crayons on the floor.

2 comments:

Melanie Bettinelli said...

Too, too funny. I love the way they find all the loop-holes.

Bella's latest discovery for Mass time distraction is the "My diaper's wet" routine. A wet diaper means a trip through the chapel where she can see the statues of the saints and practice her genuflection to the tabernacle and down the stairs to where there's a table where daddy can change the diaper and then back up the stairs and through the chapel again. An excursion! Much more fun than a boring ol' homily! And of course now most of the time the diaper isn't really wet at all.

We avoided it this week only because her cousins came to the same mass this week and sat behind us. She sat facing backwards through most of Mass, though was generally quiet and well-behaved.

Missus Wookie said...

Ah the joys of a pedant.... at least you've already got one - the two of them can entertain themselves wonderfully from now on.... {said rolling my eyes ruefully}