I took E to church for the first time last week--to my stepfather's church--it comes in handy to have an Episcopal priest in the family. We're planning to have E baptized in a couple of weeks, so I thought it would be good for her to get in a little practice at sitting still and being relatively quiet during an hour-long service. Yes, having my daughter baptized at the age of three is a little late in the game, but we were kinda distracted around the time when she should have been baptized, due to the whole Katrina thing.
Church went reasonably well. My mom went with me for moral support, and I was armed with a bag full of books, coloring books and crayons for E. She only talked a couple of times during the service, once to point out the statue of "Baby Jesus" in the back of the church. Needless to say, she's not real familiar with the whole meaning of Christianity, seeing as this was her first time at church. Her only real exposure to Jesus up to this point is that he's that nice baby that appears on billboards around town at about the same time that Santa shows up.
Near the end of the service, we took E up to the front of the church for communion. I'd whispered to her ahead of time that we were going to walk up front, kneel, hold our hands out like so and receive communion (I decided to pass on the wine for her). E daintily kneeled and received her wafer, then we walked back to our seats.
I guess the whole church experience was a big hit for her, as, once back in our seats, she loudly exclaimed, for all to hear, "Mommy, that cracker was good!" Of course, after the service, my stepfather good-naturedly pointed out that E shouldn't have received communion, seeing how she hasn't yet been baptized. Oops.
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