Prayers continuing for Terri...

Also praying for the Florida Legislature, which is meeting in special session this afternoon and will hopefully vote in favor of Terri's bill. I saw the link at numerous blogs this a.m., can't remember which one was first, so thanks to everybody and especially Terri's Fight.

They're Always Listening More than You Think

Yesterday, we were running a bit late for 9:30 Mass at our home parish, so we went to a neighboring parish for 10:00 Mass. This one is actually physically closer to our home, but we're just over the boundary line. Anyway, Fr. G spoke about Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (assuming that's the right title for her now) a bit during homily and told a lovely story about how she tended to a very ill woman the only way she could, by lovingly putting her into a comfortable bed, where the woman died shortly thereafter, "with a smile on her face."

Zooey suddenly whispered to me, "Who killed Mother Theresa?" (He's only four, remember. I don't know why he thinks she may have been killed.) I whispered back, "Nobody killed her. She was very old and she had done all the work God wanted her to do here with us, so it was time for her to die and go to heaven."

That may not be the most theologically correct way of putting it, but it's hard to find terms that a 4-year-old understands that aren't scary. We said the same thing when my husband's grandmother died last year.

Zooey immediately responded, still whispering, "I'm not going to heaven." My "mommy radar" went off the chart -- has he begun to think that heaven and/or dying are bad?

"Not yet. You still have work to do down here, for God."

Zooey thought that over for a minute. "Mother Theresa died with a smile on her face?" he asked.

I put my arm around him and brought him in close. "Father was telling a story about another lady whom Mother Theresa was helping. But I think Mother Theresa probably died with a smile on her face, too. Time to listen to Father, now."

Boy, there's times when all I can do is hope I'm doing the parenting thing right.

Trivial Stuff

Halloween, All Saints and All Souls events are coming up fast.

My attempts to coax Zooey into dressing up as a knight like St. George were all in vain. First he wanted to be a bat, then he agreed to be a knight. Then he decided he'd rather be a pirate, and I got him to segue into being one of the Veggie Tales Pirates Who Don't Do Anything to make that less icky. One too many Homestar Runner cartoons later (courtesy of my husband), and he wanted to be Strong Bad. I tried to change his mind, but he was adament that it was to be Strong Bad or nothing. I ignored him for a few days and he suddenly switched to Charlie Brown. Still not a saint, but relatively harmless. And since he's not going to be in the All Saints parade at school after all (no preschoolers), I'm not going to try to change his mind again. Besides, I have to have time to get the costume together.

We found a yellowish polo shirt on clearance at the store & I bought some black fabric paint on sale. We painted the front zig-zag stripe on it this weekend (the back will be done this week). It looks pretty good. Toss on that and some black paints, and he's instantly Charlie Brown. We're also going to cut a gazillion holes in a old sheet like Charlie Brown did in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Adults will get the joke, anyway. And it's not like all that many people are going to see him in a costume anyway.

The pumpkin is to be carved like Charlie Brown's head. I need a nice round pumpkin for that, don't I?

--Sparki