Look Out for the Nozzles!

My darling four-year-old is really into expressing her opinion.  Unfortunately for me, we have had a lot of clashes of opinion lately.  Well, actually, I suppose that should be unfortunate for her.  Because I am The Mom.  Which means I am In Charge.  Right?  Yes, that's what I keep telling myself.  And her.

We've been trying to get better at attending church, which has been challenging for a few reasons.  First, my husband's work schedule always involves at least one weekend day, and his schedule changes every 2-3 months.  Second, because we don't regularly attend, we don't know anyone at our church because even the family members that go there never seem to go to the same service we go to.  Third, we like going with my in-laws to the church where we were married, which is nowhere close to our house.  And fourth, we have a four-year-old who is opinionated.

For three weeks in a row, we attended mass on Saturday afternoon with Mom & Dad.  Each time, Katy Rose insisted she didn't like to go to church.  And so we made her go, like good parents do, and tried to keep her quiet and behaving well enough to avoid disrupting our neighbors in the pews. 

The first week, I grabbed a hotel notepad from the car just before we went in.  I now carry a box of Crayola crayons in my purse at all times, and it came in handy.  Katy Rose spent her church time drawing four pictures.  A pumpkin, a lemon, a carrot, and an apple.  The carrot and pumpkin are holding babies.  The lemon is jumping on a trampoline.  I was so delighted with her artwork, I took a picture of them after mass and shared it on facebook.  I didn't know she knew how to draw smiley faces already!

So, anyhoo, fast forward a bit and we are thinking of switching churches to a parish that is very close to home.  They have a school and a preschool where we plan to enroll Katy Rose in August.  So we wanted to attend mass there and see how we liked it.  I told Katy we were going to go to church, and she gave me her standard, defiant pout and delcared she doesn't want to go to church.  After a few words about why it's important I tried a different route.  "But there is music at church, and we get to sing songs," I said.  "But I don't like those kind of songs," she countered.  "Why not?"  "Well... because they're too God-ish."

I think I did a sort of double-take on that.  Goddish.  All things relevant to God?  All things Holy?  Hmm...

Almost as funny was when she said she wanted to show me how she can rub her nose when it is itchy.  Then she scratched the bridge of her nose and said, "This is how I scratch my nose when the top part is itchy, not the nozzles."  How's that for a visual?  Talk about a snot-rocket, double barrel!

Remind me to create a Katy Rose glossary.