He's still a baby too

Jason works on Sundays.  He starts his day early in the morning with CCD and it ends late at night after Youth Group.  If we don't go to Mass as a family on Saturday night, I have to figure out another way to get to Mass with the kids. 

My family lives 30 minutes away so sometimes I'll just grab the kids and all their stuff and travel to my old parish for Mass.  If I drive an extra 30 minutes I have an extra 18 hands for Church!  My family always helps out with the babies so I am not frazzled!

This past Sunday, we attended Church with 4 of my nephews and my mom.  Leo spent the majority of the Mass sitting with his favorite people in the world.  I spent the majority trying to get Elena to sit still and not crawl everywhere.  Toward the end of Mass, Leo came over to me and put his arms up.  I passed Elena down to my mom and scooped him up to hold him for a while.  My arms are never empty.  And I love it that way!!  (Well...except when I'm preparing dinner.  It's a little tricky then.) 

I snuggled Leo for a few minutes.  Then we knelt down for the the consecration.  When we stood up, I picked him up again.  Church is one of the very few times I can just hold him.  Usually doing laundry, cleaning, cooking, taking care of Elena, or just taking a few minutes to sit down and not be touched by ANYONE mandates that he is not held very often at home.

When I returned from communion, a woman stopped to let me go in front of her.  She was all smiles at Elena.  After Mass, the same woman commented from 2 rows behind,

"I loved watching his cousins play with him.  That was so wonderful.  They were such a help to you so you could hold the baby and they were so good during the Mass!" 

I already knew they would be.  My nephews are awesome. 

Then she stopped me again while I was putting on jackets and said, "You know what?  I want to thank you as well.  I really do want to thank you.  You know why?" 

Uh...I'm not sure if I want to know why...sometimes people can unknowingly (or worse, knowingly!) insult us!

"Because you know he is still a baby too.  He is still just a baby and you do well treating him as such.  He'll be grown before you know it

And it's true, Leo is still a baby.  Being a big brother doesn't mean you have to automatically grow up.  It just means I have 2 babies instead of one.  And I love it that way.  I chose to have my children close together, and that means I'll spoil them rotten as babies and let them grow up on their own time.

Plus, more babies in my house means more footie jammies!!