Crawling before Walking
I’m in the throes of so many things, like raising four tween daughters, loving an imperfect man imperfectly, trying to figure out what a career as a writer looks like, settling into my 9th lifelong state (5th in 13 years of marriage—and no, we’re not military), all while trying to discern God’s will for my life. I think we’re all in the throes of something, and once one thing seems to resolve, a new thing pops up.
Such is life.
One season melts into a new one, and from the outside looking in, the new season always seems to be vastly superior. “Once my kids are out of diapers,” I thought back then, “life will be so much easier!” The realty is, no diapers meant accidents at worst and constant trips to bathrooms at best. I didn’t have a diaper bag, but life didn’t seem any easier—just different.
The season of my kids graduating out of diapers and into preschools felt so liberating though. I relished any chance to have a little break from the kids during the day. I will never forget the blessed day that my twins were finally able to attend the Children’s Liturgy of the Word. After the opening of the Mass, just before the first reading is proclaimed, all children aged 3-7 were invited to come forward for a blessing, and then follow a few gracious volunteers who would take the kids to the basement and spend about 20 minutes with them teaching the gospel.
Our parish in Ohio didn’t offer that, so when we moved to Indiana, I jumped at the opportunity to let my kids go hear the Word downstairs while I sat and actually paid attention to the readings and homily. As a mom in the pew with four kids under six, I eagerly looked forward to letting them go get their wiggles out with someone else.
My oldest is a rule-follower and a generally quiet, respectful kid. She tricked me. I thought with consistent, loving parenting, I could make a child behave well. My twins, on the other hand, have taught me otherwise. They march to the beat of their own drums.
I’ve always attributed some of their hijinx to the fact that they always have a partner in crime. I’m sure personalities play a significant role too. Any mom who’s parented kids like them knows that most days it feels like nature overrules nurture. I raise them the same as their sisters, yet the results could not be more different.
Having high-energy, brave, rambunctious kids can be fun, but generally, it’s exhausting. Hence, my sincere elation at the prospect of them spending practically half of Mass downstairs and in the care of another adult. Like a good mom, I prepared my doe-eyed four-year-olds before the call for the children.
“Don’t yell, hit, or bite,” I told them. “Remember your manners. Be respectful and listen to your teachers. No wandering off; please stay together. Be kind.”
I completed the litany of reminders, confident that I did everything in my power to make sure they behaved well (a.k.a. didn’t embarrass me). Then, with a sweet kiss on the forehead, I sent them out of the pew to the center aisle to approach the altar.
I smiled as they took each others’ hands in their adorable matching dresses. My smile quickly melted into horror as they both dropped to their hands and knees and proceeded to crawl the entire way to the altar. I heard giggles of enjoyment from other parishioners close enough to witness my big girls in their beautiful dresses crawling like babies for all to see.
I’m sure it seemed adorable to everyone else, but I was mortified. In our first week at our new parish, we would be known as “the family with the crawling kids,” or something like that (since then, I have learned that my family is rarely inconspicuous. If you’ve ever been at a parish with us, you know what I mean. I’ve also learned this is 100% not a bad thing).
Needless to say, I still didn’t get much out of the Liturgy of the Word during that Mass. But I learned an important lesson for both parenting and life—I can’t foresee the future. I don’t know what I don’t know. I reminded my girls about everything I could think of, yet it didn’t even occur to me that I needed to explicitly remind them to remain upright during the procession.
I share this story with you because I need to remind myself of this lesson as I embark on this new journey as a blogger. I can’t foresee the future, and I don’t know what’s in store for me. I have wanted to create this blog for a while, but I’ve been dragging my feet and hiding behind planning, falling prey again to the delusion that I can cover every base and anticipate every obstacle.
Yet here I am, launching a little bit of myself into the world, hoping that I inspire some and knowing I will fall short too often. I don’t know what will come down the road, but in the meantime, at an absolute minimum, I will be reminding myself of some important life lessons and getting a good laugh at the oftentimes preposterous thing that is living.
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