Halloween is just a couple of days away, and Olivia is excited. I mean, she's been talking about trick-or-treating since the Halloween merchandise started showing up in stores around, oh, the end of August. Right after they put away the back-to-school stuff. Because we need two whole months to prepare for a holiday that lasts just one day, right?
Grrr! As if it's not bad enough having to dodge candy displays for nine or ten weeks, now we have to either avoid all the Halloween party fun or figure out a way to hide and ration candy WHILE collecting it. That's hard stuff, y'all.
So. Wednesday night is religion class. And, yes, it is a little pointless to take an almost-3-year-old to religion class. Especially when she knows more rote prayers and can better articulate who Jesus is than 90 percent of the first communion class at our parish. (And no, I'm not even kidding. If they don't hear them at home, second graders are not going to know their prayers. And they are NOT hearing them at home. Or at church. Because their parents don't bring them to church very often. But that's an entirely different post.) We agreed long ago that our child would receive her religious education at home, from two people who individually know more about the Catholic Church than the entire group of catechists at our parish combined. Yeah, I know that makes me sound arrogant and know-it-all-ie. But it's true, and if I can't talk about it here on my blog than where can I talk about it? My husband has a Masters degree in Catholic Life and Thought. I spent my entire professional life planning programming for Catholic families in our diocese, which required more than a little bit of research and study in All Things Catholic, including a heavy emphasis on Theology of the Body. The average qualifying traits of most of the catechists at our parish is that they were raised Catholic, have had their kids baptized, and they show up to Sunday Mass about 80 percent of the time. And it scares me to imagine putting my child's religious education in their hands.
And yet, here we are with our preschooler in religion class. She's there mostly because she is at an age where she LOVES being around other kids, and we hoped being in some sort of organized setting where she has to pay attention to a teacher might actually help her attention span a bit. Although I think she may be getting more out of her weekly gymnastics class (which she also recently started).
Aaaand...I'm rambling.
So, on Wednesday night, there was a Halloween party for the last half of religion class. (Don't even get me started on what a waste THAT is. Not the point.) Everyone was supposed to bring a treat to share with the whole group...grades preschool up to 7th, I think. Twenty five or thirty kids.
Now, I knew about the party coming into this. And I had a feeling that it would be a nightmare. I knew we should have stayed home. Sugar and my child do not mix well. Even though she LIVES for sugar. It screws with her ability to behave like a civilized being. And chocolate is like taking the sugar crazed kid and gluing her eyes open for hours on end. Yeah.
I told Olivia she could pick TWO sweet treats. And out of the whole table full of stuff, she did just that. I was very proud of her. Except that they were both chocolate.
And we didn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11:00 p.m.
I think I hate Halloween.
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