Be silent be still!

I always feel awkward being the family that sits a little closer to the front of church and has loud children.  Or at least I feel like my children are being louder than normal because there are no other children sitting close by to drown out their loudness.  Today was one of those days.  We arrived at church at just minutes before and ended up sitting several rows ahead of where we normally do.  My children are also running off the high of daddy having just come home from a trip away and being so excited that we've gone somewhere.  Unfortunately it's someplace where their excitement comes out in volumes.  Literally.

It used to be that we could bring a toy or few and they'd be content.  Or you could bring a picture book and they'd occasionally tug on your shirt to ask what this or that was.  No longer.  Little Miss demands to play with everything she can't have, demands that she be allowed to thumb through the missalette where she can easily accidentally rip the thin pages, jump up and down in the pew and say hi very loudly to everyone around us.

I feel like a broken record when I keep asking one or the other of them to be quiet, sit still, stop doing this and that.  So today about halfway through I got an idea.  I started by pointing at the stained glass windows and explaining to Monster Bean what the pictures meant.  There was a picture of the Nativity, a picture of our Basilica, a carving of Jesus.  By doing this he was kept busy and quiet (for the most part).  I felt a little bad for talking through church, but at least I was whispering and teaching my kid something!  :)

But the cutest and sweetest part was when we were watching a baby be baptized and I told him that when you are baptized, you are inviting Jesus into your heart.  He sort of loudly asked if Jesus was in his heart and if he was small, then he asked daddy if Jesus was in everybody's heart.  Made my heart melt :D