Pancakes

Conversation between me and The Babe in church, during pre-Communion prayers*:

The Babe: "Mom? Can I do this up there?" (Cupping his hands in front of him and pointing to the altar rail.)

Me: "No, honey. You need to do this." (Folding my arms across my chest.)

The Babe: "WHY???" (Clearly frustrated.)

Me: "Because you haven't been baptized yet. You have to wait until then."

The Babe: "Well, I'm going to do this (cupping) anyway."

Me: Don't know what to do, so I put my finger to my mouth then point to the priest, signaling "It's time to pay attention."

MINUTES LATER WE ARRIVE AT THE ALTAR RAILING.....

The Babe kneels to the left of me and cups his hands. Father Whatshisname** gives me a wafer and starts to give one to The Babe.

I swoop in like an NFL line judge signaling an incomplete pass. Except I only have my left hand available. Father Whatshisname immediately changes tactics, after audibly saying "OH!", and blesses the child. The Babe, in turn, immediatley turns to me and gives me a really stinky stink-eye***.

As we are returning to our pew, I can feel the stink-eye continuing. If we had been playing a game of "Blink first, you lose", he'd have won. He was doing his level best to maintain eye contact and I was doing my best to ignore his eye-based hatred.

When we sit back down, he's STILL staring at me, all crazy-eyed. So I ask "Honey, why did you want the wafer?" The Babe: "Just because."

Now, honestly, I was hoping for some huge revelation about him asking Jesus if he could eat the wafer or something equally as "Godly". No dice.

Me: "Well, OK. If you want to tell me you can."

I kneel and look straight ahead. Then The Babe blows my mind by tapping me on the shoulder. When I look at him, he has tears in his eyes. I feel like crap on a stick.

"I wanted to taste the pancake."

It was all I could do not to laugh. My kid is righteously indignant because of a communion wafer that he thinks is a pancake?

I hugged his little body and promised him I'd get him a "pancake" sometime soon.

And, during Sunday School hour, I talked with Father Reallytall and he agreed to get me an unconsecrated wafer, after laughing with me about our heavenly pancakes.

In fact, Father Reallytall is getting the biggest pancake he can find. He said we could enjoy it for dessert after dinner one night.

In just a few days, when we get that "pancake", I'm afraid The Babe is in for a let down of gigantic proportions.

Upon tasting the wafer, and realizing it tastes about like wet cardboard, I think our little issue is going to be solved.

But now I'm wondering if the next hurtle will be convincing The Babe that the cup doesn't contain syrup?


*Props to The Babe. He's gotten better at cupping his hand around my ear and only slightly rendering me deaf with his "whispering".

**I know his name, just don't want to out him on this one.

***Two things here: have you noticed how much stink-eye we give each other in this family? It's our favorite, non-verbal form of communication. Second, I have a sneaking suspicion that the blessing The Babe was just given didn't take, if he's going all crazy-eyed on me immediately after the blessing was pronounced.....