Sunday, August 1, 2010

Give Us This Day Our Bailey's Bread

Brace yourselves....we went to church this morning. I know! I'm just as surprised as you are.
I'm sure my mom just fell on the floor from the shock of it all.

Quite honestly, I haven't been to church in a long time and I don't have a real good reason for this dry spell. My absence was never about God; it was all about me.

I just didn't feel like going.
And I like to go grocery shopping on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Caroline and I went to church this morning. It was okay. I'll probably go again.

But you know what bugged me?

The over abundance of iPhones being used to pull up the Bible verses. Oh, and the pastor's use of the iPad for his sermon notes.

Seriously. That totally bugged me and I have no idea why. It's ridiculous, I know.

And what's even funnier, just this week I read something on the very same topic.

How relevant.

So after church, which starts at 11 and gets out right at lunch time, Caroline tried every trick in her limited, yet ever growing, arsenal of beggary/whinery tricks to get me to stop for lunch. I fully anticipated this, because I'm wise to her ways, and probably used many of them on my own mom, so I packed a snack for her to eat on the way home. As I was digging into the depths of my purse, searching for said snack, Caroline was secretly hoping that the granola bar had gone missing. Because then, I'd HAVE to stop at McDonalds. Surely I wouldn't let my one and only child STARVE TO DEATH on the 15 minute drive home. Only a monster would make her kid wait a few extra minutes for lunch.

Fortunately, the granola bar was found and Caroline's Happy Meal plans were foiled. Ha!

And then, she was forced to eat grilled cheese. Oh. the. horror.

I encountered a moldy bread situation the other day and was left only with some whole wheat bagel thins to use as the bread medium for Caroline's grilled cheese. And this, my friends, is where I entered the world of real motherhood. I used a common mom phrase; the type of phrase your mom used on you which caused you to roll your eyes at her utter uncoolness factor and then vowed to never, never, NEVER use that phrase on your own kids.

You know how when you were a kid and you wanted the latest, greatest gadget or toy? You'd go to your parents and ask for it. And they'd probably say no because it was too expensive or came with too many little pieces that your little sister might choke on. And after you whined a bit and jumped around and begged like your life depended on it and they still said no, you'd say, "but Madison P. has one, why can't I?" And your parents would inevitably say, "Well, I'm not Madison P.'s parent. I'm YOUR parent."

Ugh.

You know how it goes.

Same thing with parties you wanted to attend or movies you wanted to see. It didn't matter if Jessica's parents let her see a PG-13 movie. You weren't allowed because your parents were responsible for you and you only. Not Jessica. Or Michelle. Or Madison P.

So, as I informed Caroline that her grilled cheese sandwich was going to be made on a whole wheat bagel thin, she said "why don't you ever buy white bread?"

And I replied, "Because I buy whole wheat; it's what I think is best for us." You know, standard answer.

To which Caroline said, "but Bailey has white bread."

Guess where this is going....

"Well," I said "I don't buy Bailey's bread; I buy bread for YOU and I want you to eat whole wheat."

It's not quite on the "if your friends jump off a cliff, would you follow?" calibre of standard parental answers, but it's up there. I'm afraid that I've officially joined the ranks of the, ugh-I've-entered the-common-mom-phrase-uttering-phase-of-my-life.

Not that I have ever been all that cool, but I fear what little coolness I might have possessed is being slowly leeched from my very core.

So long self. Hello mom jeans.

8 comments:

Mommy Dearest said...

Heh heh heh heh heh.
(That's my "momism" response)
In other news, my butt now hurts from falling on the floor after reading that my heretofore heather daughter (I think I used that word right--heretofore, not heathen) went to church!

Alison said...

Wow, that's a big word. I'm sure you probably used it properly, but who am I to know.
I'm sorry your butt hurts. :)

Sissy said...

I'm so proud of your church going self!

Our pastor uses an iPad for his sermon notes too. I like it. It's kinda cool, I think.

Unknown said...

Alison, I definitely would be annoyed by iphones and ipads. I would think are they REALLY looking up the verses or are they using one of the other hundreds of thousands of apps?

My students will try the whole, "Well Mr. or Ms. let us blah-blah-blah." Apparently, I have said, "Am I so-and-so?" enough that some of my students say it to each other before I have to. Consider it a right of passage.

Anonymous said...

Wow! My parents are ministers and are extremely open minded but I can NOT see them using an iPad during church. I barely get to church as well but I have to say I am a little more traditional. It would make me wonder if they were checking email while the liturgist was speaking, lol...

Marcey said...

LOL!
Are you sure you didn't lie awake at night thinking of a way to use church and the kind of bread Bailey eats in one post!

Alison said...

Sissy--that's what being married to a techie will do to you! ;)

Elizabeth--I agree; I think the iPhone would make it way to easy to find something else to do while sitting in church. What happened to good old fashioned day dreaming?

Bexy--I like contemporary church services, but I think some things should remain a little more traditional.

Marcey--Ha! Nope, that actually just came to me when I sat down to blog. What can I say, I'm a genius! :)

Lele said...

Hahaha I can't wait til I have children and inevitably repeat all the things I hated my parents saying.

But yknow what? I now eat my vegetables and whole grains and I'm grateful they forced me too :D

My church has no iPhones. My priest seems confused by his microphone. As a result, we usually can't hear him. He's... old.