Precious and Holy

Last Saturday, Precious Daughter celebrated her First Holy Communion. She's been gearing up for the day for quite a while with studies at her school as well as practicing songs and such. She's been singing them so much I was just about sick of them, so much so that I was asking her not to sing. Mean, I know, but she was singing everywhere, including my in-laws', the supermarket, Mighty B.'s tee-ball games, and the like. She practiced taking Communion with every small bit of finger food on hand: pretzels, potato chips, Froot Loops.

Can you guess? Religion is her favorite subject.

Getting the dress just about sent me into seizures. Are we dressing little girls or grown-up lady brides? My initial surfing yielded sites with horrid prices and equally overblown, over-ruffled dresses, dresses with long trains dragging behind them, I kid you not! How is a kid supposed to file into church without getting her train stomped by the kid behind?

I found a terrific shop online, The Catholic Children's Company. Their large selection of dresses were reasonably priced, and many of them were American made. I was a meanie mom, picking three or four dresses from which Precious Daughter could choose. More than that and we'd never have a decision. She's her mother's daughter when it comes to decision making.

She selected a lovely veil, but it was backordered. She picked another and it was discontinued. After going a few rounds with this, I asked what they had left, and none of it suited Precious Daughter. She didn't want a tiara or anything crown-like. No bows in the back, either. She wanted a wreath of flowers, because it's May and she wanted to wear flowers for Mary because "Mary likes flowers." I ended up making the veil.

A few days after placing my order, including a phone call to make sure the dress we wanted was available in Precious Daughter's size, customer service phoned and told me the dress we selected was backordered. Ack!!! Customer service was extremely helpful in assisting me with another selection and getting it into the mail quickly so we'd have it in time.

Added 5/14/09 - I reread this, and I feel that I should mention that my woes with backorderd items were self-inflicted. This is what I get for ordering these things a mere three weeks prior to the sacrament. I should have ordered them much earlier, because I knew full well that most Catholic churches celebrate First Holy Communion in May. Catholic Children's Company took it all in stride and kissed my procrastinating hiney way more than they should have. They weren't at all concerned that Precious Daughter's replacement dress cost ten dollars more than what we'd originally ordered. They sent the replacement and didn't bill the ten bucks.

Saturday morning, I dragged Precious Daughter out of bed, got her fed and dressed and off to the hairdresser for an 8:15 appointment. Our hairdresser gave Precious Daughter all the curls her poker-straight hair could want, and Precious Daugther was pleased as punch. Caked with as much hair spray as environmental regulations would allow, we left the shop praying that her curls would survive the humidity. (Please feel free to tell me how nice the veil is. Pinning lace to tulle is like trying to pin shadows together.)

"Pleased as punch." What an odd phrase. How can punch be pleased? Or does this phrase refer to Judy's fellow puppet?



I was disorganized as usual, but we all managed to get to the church on time. Mighty B. had the nerve to spike a fever, so instead of sitting in the seats reserved for The Oracle and me, I sat in the back with him and gave my seat to Hon. I could see enough from the back of the church, and I suspect that I'll see it many times over when the DVD arrives.

After the mass, Precious Daughter had enough of picture taking. Look! Her curls are already sagging. She was itchy and uncomfortable, so we let her change clothes before heading off to one of her favorite Italian restaurants for lunch. Along with the five of us, we celebrated with Hon & Pop, Aunt V. & Uncle R, and Aunt J. and Uncle B.


On Sunday morning, she had to dress up again for the 9:00 a.m. mass. The Monsignor sort of dedicates this mass to First Communicants, and the first-grade mothers organize a party for them in the hall in the church basement. The first-grade parents also spent Saturday morning roaming the hall beneath the church taking random pictures of the kids which they printed and put on display Sunday. The First Communicants could take the pictures of themselves home. Next year, Mighty B. will be in first grade, so I'll get to do this for next year's second-grade class.

Later in the day I took the kids to a local playground in the afternoon to fly kites. I wish I'd brought the camera!


Today was the school's May Procession. Thankfully, she didn't have to arrive at the school, dressed in her First Communion attire, until 1:00. She awoke complaining of a headache and congestion, but she still wanted to go. I fixed her hair, got her dressed, and off we went.


By the time the kids filed into the church, Precious Daughter looked thoroughly miserable, but thankfully you can't quite see it in this photo.



And, wouldn't you know, at 4;00 this afternoon I was given my first returning-to-work assignment. The baby-sitter says she doesn't mind taking a sick kid, but Precious Daughter's symptoms are getting more pronounced. I want to stay home, but I feel like a heel canceling my first assignment.


I called the doc and dragged her over. The kid had a fever, sore throat, headache. She's staying home anyway, and my assignment has been given to someone else. Ah, well. This is what happens when you have children.


(For those that read this post prior to 7:22 a.m. on 5/12, please accept my apology for the weird spacing and odd writing. I erroneously hit "publish" instead of "save as draft.")