Columbus Day weekend 2019. Betsy was down in Charleston with Mary Lou and Dolores, Kristin was away with friends, and Christian was busy with soccer so I had Rose for the weekend. I planned to take her to Mass with me on Sunday. As Saturday rolled around, and Rose and I went up to church to open it up, I realized that the only time Rose had been to church with me in the last year had been when it was just the two of us, opening up or doing some setup. She loves to run in and out of the pews, enjoy the echo, play the piano, test the baptismal font water temperature, etc. So I am starting to worry if she will be able to stay quiet during Mass.

I started to tell her that we were going to Mass tomorrow and that if she was quiet and sat still during Mass we would go downstairs and have Dunkin Donuts afterward.

We got to church a little after 8 Sunday and sure enough Rose started running around, pretending to read the lectionary, and telling me not to catch her. The choir members who had come early for rehearsal are looking at me like, “you are going to have your hands full during Mass!”. I tried to get her to sit and get in the mood for Mass but she continued to crawl away from me and run up and down the aisles.

Finally about 5 minutes before Mass started, I took her downstairs and showed her the donuts all setup on the table, and said, “All this can be yours if you are quiet and sit with me during Mass. But if you get noisy, we are going to leave and go to Lancaster.”

Mass started and she was absolutely perfect. She sat or let me hold her, and she was quiet. But every time I started to sing, or say the responses, she turned to me, and said, “Shh” with a look that said, “You’re not going to mess up my donut treat!”