Church Pews Are Built For Speed!

Emily loves to run and be chased. Such that part of her nightly routine is to come into Braedyn’s room, kiss us goodnight, then stand in the doorway as though its the starting line of the Olympic 100meter dash and tell me “Say Ready Set Go daddy!”. Of course I comply and she races off back to her room. She loves to play this game. This is relevant to the story. I promise.

If you have read much of this blog, you realize we are not a religious family, not in the least. So you can imagine the terror that gripped Susanne and I as we realized that our children had never been in, trained to behave, or had any concept of a church as we tromped into a friends full Catholic mass wedding ceremony.

Oh, the terror. Not the wedding, but our children.

We were smart (not smart enough to leave the kids at home with a babysitter mind you) enough to sit in the last available row. I won’t go into all the horrifying details of the loud talking, the pointing, the “I want to go home”, the “I need to go potty” just as the marriage vows are about to be spoken (yes, I missed the “you may kiss the bride", but I got to see everything else).

As you may know a Catholic mass is not a short affair. Let’s just say that by the end of the ceremony, our jackets, bags and such were at one end of the pew, Emily and I at the other end, and Susanne and Braedyn were in the last row of ANOTHER section of the church, in the last row.

Now mind you, my children are not misbehaved, they just have no understanding of what a church is and that is a story for another day.

But here we are. Emily and I, flipping through the hymns book (I have no understanding of the fascination) when it slips through her fingers and mine and plummets to the floor. You would have thought the Unknown Comic was Gang-Gonged by the sound it made when it hit the floor. I was not laughing, I promise you.

But then Emily decides she is going to stand up on the pew and show me her “tricks” which include leaning over the back of the pew and nearly flipping over, standing on one leg, and then running off to the other side of the pew. Now you must understand that I am TRYING my damndest to settle her down, and have dragged her out of the church twice already, which seems more disruptive than her current shenanigans.

So there she is, my angel, my little princess standing halfway across the church on a pew swinging her hips and giving me the “you can’t get me” body wiggle during a full Catholic mass wedding when she looks at me an says “Say ready, set go daddy”.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. I think people prayed for my salvation. I just wish I had the balls run down the pews.