Church Mommy

Today was one of my church mommy days. You see, when I married my husband, I agreed that our children would be raised Christian (OK, I can't even SPELL IT, I flipped back and forth between a and e before googling it and finding out there was an i too). To me this meant that he would arrange for their baptism, take them to church every Sunday and basically handle that part of their lives. How foolish was I. It seems that my nature is such that I can't just leave him to do what he wants (or doesn't want) to do.

Last summer, enrolling C in Sunday School somehow made it onto my to do list as M was dragging his heels about it. I think I was under the illusion that if I enrolled C, he would ride off with Daddy to church and Mommy would laze around in her PJ's and sip coffee. Instead, it turned out that this is a co-op Sunday School and mommies (not daddies) ran it. Now, a rational mommy would have told the Sunday School coordinator that she was not in fact baptized and let them work out the details of who covered my teaching hours. Instead, I somehow ended up running Sunday school eight Sundays a year plus "extra curricular" activities such as the Turkey Drive and (gulp) Christmas pageant.

How did this happen you ask? Well, part of me was worried that C would be upset that everyone else's mommy showed up for Sunday school but not his. A small part of me felt somewhat obligated to volunteer if that was what it took because I had promised to raise my kids in the church. A not so small part of me figured that if I was teaching him about religion I could put my two cents in about the things I felt strongly about (like Darwin. And did I mention that Jesus was an oops baby?).

A year into it, I have to say it is not as horrid as I thought it would be. The church is a lovely church and the people have grown on me, as has the priest (or is he a minister...). I am enjoying getting a chance to see C interact in a "classroom" environment. Perhaps most importantly, it makes my husband so happy to have us all troop to church together. His family memories from his childhood are few and far between, but going to church is one that has stuck with him. As he graciously puts up with my family's liberalness, which I have a feeling might be more painful for him than listening to 20 minutes of a well written talk once a week is for me, I feel I should reciprocate by doing something that clearly means a lot to him (even if you couldn't tell that by his lack of initiative in the Sunday School registration process).

All that having been said, I think I need to get myself to Ann Taylor as I DO NOT have an appropriate church mommy wardrobe these days. Turns out you can wear jeans and sweats all week, but on Sundays you need a dress. Go figure.