Maggie’s Weekend Update

The Point/Counterpoint Version

• On the one hand, I got so sick on Pentecost Sunday that I was not able to attend Mass after all. And here I had so looked forward to greedily gathering up all those graces! (A plenary indulgence! Sigh!) There was no way I could have attended, as I was visiting the bathroom (Hello! How are you? Me? Well, I’m a bit sick at the moment) every 10 minutes, easily. After an hour and a half of this I finally slept…and slept…and slept. I think my husband and the kids were downstairs somewhere…and I think at some point someone snuck into the room with a 7-Up for Momma…and I think my husband even mustered up the courage to take to the family off to Mass all by himself. Okay, I know he did. And therefore, dang it, he got all my graces!

• On the other hand, I was able to assist at an amazingly beautiful Memorial Day Mass the following morning with my sons, who as Cub Scouts were invited to join the ceremony. Of course I wept like a child to see the Vets processing in at the start of Mass, and then again when they played Taps at the closing of the Flag Folding ceremony. Have you ever been to a Flag Folding ceremony? If not, you should check out the symbolism here because it’s really something.

• On the one hand, the festive mood of our Memorial Day get-together at my friend Tina’s was dampened considerably when her son fell off the swing and blacked out temporarily. It is unnerving to say the least to see a two-year-old lying so very still like that. And as exciting as it is for the kids to see an ambulance pull up to the house unexpectedly, it is a nail-biting moment for us parents!

• On the other hand, I don’t know that the rest of us (5 sets of parents and 30 kids altogether) would have taken the opportunity to pray the rosary if there hadn’t been such a pressing need to invoke the saints. (And how funny is this: we lured the kids into the sitting room with “Should we all pray a decade for Lukie?” Then we roped ‘em into a full five mysteries! And all 30 of them were troopers.)

• On the one hand, I never realized until this weekend, while doing a foam alphabet puzzle with my 2 ½ year old, that she knows the names of all the letters. (I’ll nip your possibly thinking that I’m an Uber Mom in the bud by saying: my daughter has two older sisters. And they play a game called “alphabet soup” all the time. This must be where Camille got it.)

• On the other hand, being human, I couldn’t help feeling all warm & fuzzy over her lisping out, “That’s a ‘c’. That’s a ‘k’. That’s an ‘h’.” And then I sniffed the air and realized: my daughter may know all her letters, but she still won’t go poop where she ought to.

And that’s the rest of the story. I will close in saying that all is well that ends well: I am back and (bonus points) feeling lighter for all my visits to the restroom, and Baby Luke is back home from the hospital and is back to his very happy, very cute self. As my friend ‘Meg put it in the sweetest little “get well e-mail” ever, “Isn’t God good, to schedule your ‘sick time’ when your husband already has time off?” Yes, my friend, He is good. He is very, very good.

Have a blessed week, everyone! We never know what’s in store for us, but with the right perspective it will always be fun. (And if not fun, then faith-filled! Either way, we’re a winner.)