I Want to Stop and Say Hi to Jesus

The great post by Elizabeth about praying a rosary with her toddler that I mentioned yesterday led me to reading this series about the catechesis of young children. Go read it. (here, here, and here)

A mind-blowing excerpt, written as she is explaining that we don't need to give our children a relationship with God, they already have one from before they were born. We merely need to help them develop it. She writes,

Just as when he learns to say “mama” my son is merely giving a voice to that which he already knew from the moment of his birth, speaking a name for that person whose voice and smell he recognized in his first moments in the outside world, so too with the name Jesus. I was merely giving him a name for something he already knew, showing him a sign and helping him put a face to a presence that he already had a relationship with from the moment of his conception.

It got my wheels turning on what I'm doing to teach my children about their faith and what I need to be doing. And I automatically started criticizing myself for not doing more. Too much tv, not teaching enough prayers, never going to daily Mass, forgetting to pray in the mornings, etc etc. But as I started thinking of the things that I do do, well the list is actually quite impressive in my mind. I share, not to toot my own horn, but because...well, sharing on this blog is what I do.

Every time we drive by a church I "wave to Jesus" and tell Hannah that His body is in the church as the Eucharist. A few times we've even stopped in to say a quick (really quick) prayer before hopping back in our cars to go home.

We pray before meals. The regular prayer and a prayer for the souls in purgatory.

We have religious pictures and crucifixes up around the house. I point them out from time to time and ask her questions. "Who is that? Who does Jesus love?"

I sing hymns as lullabies and she learned all the words of the Hail Mary from my singing it at night.

We sometimes bless each other with holy water before going to bed.

We take our children to Mass, where they receive countless graces just from their presence. I whisper in her ear during the consecration, "Jesus' body. Jesus' blood."

When she asks me if I'm happy (her newest obsession) I say "Yes, who makes me happy?" and she's learned to answer with either, "Hannah," "Daddy," Paul," or "Jesus!"

We have an occasional "family movie night" when we all sit down together and watch a religious kids show, which gives us some great points to talk about and is a lot of fun.
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We have children's Bibles and read about Moses and David and the birth of Jesus, but only when she's interested because otherwise it's a fight.

We look at a picture book of our family and godparents during our nighttime prayers and say "Pray for  ___" as we flip through. (Although, for Hannah it sounds like "pay dor ___") We also say a short litany of our patron saints and she replies with "pay dor us!"


Depending on what your faith and family life is like, that may seem like a ton or it may seem like a feeble attempt at catechesis. But listing all of that out has taken me from guilt of not being good enough to teach my children to feeling pretty competent that I can actually encourage their relationships with the Lord pretty well. I know I have more to do. I know there is always room for improvement, but right now I'm feeling more up to the challenge than I am guilt and despair.

I'm up for the challenge of limiting the TV time in hopes that creative play will better develop. (but no getting rid of Netflix until I finish Once Upon a Time season two.) I'm up for the challenge of some type of toddler rosary on a daily weekly sometimes basis. I'm up for the challenge of making it to daily Mass every so often, and requiring a morning prayer before I get them out of bed, and talking about the feast days of the saints, and adding in more spontaneous prayer throughout our days. I'm up for the challenge of playing good, holy music in the car instead of giving in to whiny requests for "row row boat" for the hundredth time. I'm up for the challenge of getting even more creative with our budget so that we can buy good quality Catholic children's books that aren't in the library. I'm up for the challenge of acting like my children's religious upbringing is the single most important aspect of my parenting. (hint, because it is.)

I'm up for the challenge because I have to be. This is what I signed up for when I had kids. When I baptized them into our faith.

Today, as I tucked Hannah in for her naptime, I whispered in her ear, "God loves you so much and thinks you are soooo special," because I was feeling a little push from reading the above articles. When she woke up from her nap I heard her yelling, "Mommy! He's gone (dawn)! Where's God (Dod)?" I thought I was just the best mom in the entire world. Here I was, whispering God into her ears as she drifted off to sleep and when she woke up she was wondering where God went. I was so excited to have a conversation about the fact that we can't see God and He lives inside of us, and so on.

"God?" I clarified. "God's gone?" Her /g/ sounds like /d/ so I figured this is what she was saying.

"No mommy. Dod. Dahhhhhd. Not Dod. Where is my dod?"

She then went around looking for him. And finally stumbled upon

God.

Her frog humidifier that I moved to our room. Because her /g/ and her /f/ sound like /d/. And she can't say /r/. So "frog"="dod".

Ok, maybe she's not as holy as I had hoped. But she did allow me to give myself that pat on the back later. As we drove to the grocery store we passed by a church. She noticed it and said, "Mommy, I want stop and say hi to Desus."

I must be doing something right. Thank Dod.