First Communion and Memorial Day

I mentioned on Saturday that it was a big day for our family.  It was our son's First Communion at the school he is attending.  I don't think it could have possibly gone any better, though there were a few potential moments.

The First Communion was scheduled to begin at 4pm, but my wife and I were to get there around 3:30 to meet with the folks that helped my son prepare for Communion.  When we got there, the person we were to meet with was not at the chapel.  I headed up to the dorms to tell the dorm personnel that we were going to take our son out to dinner after his First Communion.  As it turns out, that is where I found the lady we were to meet with.

Unfortunately, nobody had told the dorm worker that my son was going to have First Communion, so she allowed him to take a little nap on the couch in the rec room.  They were trying to wake him up to get him ready but he wasn't cooperating.  Like a lot of us, he gets a little cranky when you wake him up.  I walked in and told him we needed to get ready for church, but he told me he didn't want to go.  I told him that if he went to church and had First Communion that we would take him to Golden Corral for dinner and had a surprise for him.  It worked.

I helped him get dressed and we headed down to the chapel.  We were still pretty early for the service, so we were pretty much the only ones around.  When the priest showed up, my son's eyes lit up and he smiled and said, "It's Father!"  He greeted all of our relatives that showed up and waited patiently.  When the head nun showed up he said "It's Sister Jeanette."  We went over and said hello to her and she told us he had been attending church regularly and was very well behaved.  That is a far cry from the first couple conversations we had with her when he first started to attend the school.

During the service he stayed pretty quiet.  He fidgeted a little now and then.  There were a couple times when he put his head on my shoulders and wanted me to stroke his head or his hands.  When it came time for him to take Communion from the priest, he hesitated at first, but took it with some encouragement.  He then said "just one more time" which got a laugh from everyone.  I know that is something he often says when you get him to do something that he doesn't want to do and are trying to get him to do it again.

After the service, we took several pictures.  He received a number of cards and money as a gift for his First Communion.  He got enough money to cover half the cost of a new basic computer for when he comes home from school for the Memorial Day weekend tomorrow.  As promised, we took him to Golden Corral for dinner after the service.  This was the first time that we had attempted to take him off campus for a visit. I was a little concerned that we would have a difficult time getting him back in the car, but there were no issues at all.

Another concern was whether or not he would eat the same variety of food with us that he has been eating at school for the past few weeks.  The concern was short lived.  He told me that he wanted chicken, ribs, potatoes, and corn.  They didn't have ribs, but I got him a plate of bourbon chicken, pot roast, corn, mashed potatoes, and fried rice.  He ate it all.  In fact, he ate a total of three big plates of food.  He also ate some sesame chicken and another style of roast beef with gravy.  The school nurse also emailed us today to tell us that he ate ice cream at school.  Another new food.

We are looking forward to our long weekend home for Memorial Day weekend.  We have plans to attend a couple of Bowie Baysox games on Sunday and Monday.  Who knows?  Maybe he will even go so far as to have a hot dog or two at the ball park.  All I know is that every day we are more and more certain that we made the right choice in having him go away to school, as difficult a choice as it was at the time.