Palm Sunday: Throwing Socks and Behaving in Church

Today is Palm Sunday, which means that Sadie made it through a very long gospel reading this morning (although I will not claim that she made it through without making a sound).  She squeaked several times, babbled a little, made small squacking sounds, tried to grab the palm of the lady sitting on our right, tried to pet the jacket of the lady sitting in front of us, and used every ounce of strength to try to lift the hymnal out of the back of the pew in front of us so that she could run her finger nails back and forth over the tops of the pages.  Paul and I passed her back and forth, because it takes a lot of energy to keep her quiet for an entire hour and she was not as convinced or lulled by my swaying back and forth, which usually does the trick.  

We've been trying to get through Mass without the assistance of toys or food.  I looked around at a few other blogs that talked about the subject of having babies at church and the general consensus was that you should have high expectations from the very beginning so that it's never a surprise or a change when you decide that the baby is too old to have snacks or a sippy cup at church.  

Some of the moms suggested having church shoes, so that kids know that when they're in their church shoes they need to be on their best behavior.  Once Sadie's old enough to keep her shoes on her feet (so far shoes and socks are kind of a disaster) we're going to try this strategy.  I liked the suggestion of blank patent leather shoes for fall and winter and white patent leather for spring and summer.  I'll write more about that when I know whether it worked for us.  

Speaking of socks, I did put socks on Sadie's feet this morning before we left for church.  Then I put them back on her feet after she pulled them off during the gospel reading.  Then I picked one up off the pew in front of us because Sadie had pulled it off and thrown it (luckily the sock didn't hit anyone).  A few sock replacements later I started holding one sock in my hand to avoid the inevitable sock retrieval.  She certainly is strong willed.