First Reconciliation
D received his First Reconciliation last Saturday. This was an interesting one to prepare for because like many (most?) Catholics I myself am intimidated by the whole process of Confession. I know, its supposed to make you feel better, not worse and is a gift from God and all that...still does not make it a whole lot less intimidating. Anyway, I tried to be very matter of fact with D and help him prepare in the way our church has directed us to. Jason and I went through the workbook they gave us (OK, we went through most of...we may have skipped some), we attended the parent only meetings (terribly boring!!!) and the parent-child preparation workshop (an all morning event one Saturday-it was actually a refreshingly good workshop that I think was good for both the parents and the kids). I also (grudgingly) taught D the Act of Contrition that they gave us to teach the kids which is not the one that I learned. Seems like after 2000 or so years they could agree on one prayer that we are all supposed to be using, but whatever-if the Parish thinks this is the one that our kids should be using, so be it. Its a bit tamer than the one I learned though!!
In any case, the night before his First Reconciliation we deemed D appropriately prepared when he told me that he was sure no second grader who received Reconciliation would get stones in his stocking for Christmas. Just to be sure I was understanding what he was saying, since it seemed pretty profound even for our Daniel, I asked him why that was. He explained that since after Reconciliation all of your sins are forgiven, then there was no way a kid who had Reconciliation could have been bad enough before Christmas to not get gifts. I love it when our kids can boil what we thought was a difficult concept into something so simple.
One concept that we seemed to have missed in all of our discussions of Confession was how many times you get to/have to go. I told Daniel that maybe during Advent he, Daddy and I would all go to Confession when they have the Penance Day at our church. He said "I have to go again???" He thought this was a one time shot. Oops. I guess we should have completed all the pages of that Workbook after all....
Pies for Art?
We are very proud of D's artistic ability. Last week we went out to dinner at Perkins (a breakfast/pancake chain for those of you not in the Midwest) and they had a coloring contest. Each child was asked to color a winter wonderland page and at the end of the night they would judge the contest and the child who had the best picture would win a pie. Well, the next morning we got the call-Daniel had won the coloring contest! He is now the proud owner of one pumpkin pie that we will pick up the day before Thanksgiving and have for dessert after our delicious meal. Yeah to Daniel!!!
