Oh dear God,

I did it. I survived. I managed to get the girls to church (and through the service) all by myself. I prepared myself adequatly with snacks and waters, tissues and toys, and some how we came out on the other side alive. Things were going so smoothly that I was even getting a little cocky. ... right up until communion. After the girls received their sacrament it kind of went right out the window. Arianna was bit by the giggle bug and seemed to laugh the entire way through the priests sermon. Genevieve was hit with the hiccups (little too much blood of Christ) and it echoed through the entirity of the accustically designed building. Add to this their ancy little bodies turned into a mini cyclone twirling around in the pew. Up on my lap, over the back of the other pew, grab hyman and start tearing it, throw it, jump down, on to thea, back again. I could feel the eyes of the various older Greeks bearing in to the back of my skull (fortunatly we sat with Gina's family in the front few rows since we were there for Tony's 40 day memorial, so there wasn't anyone turning around to look at me in the face), and on more than one occassion the priest shot me a glance that seemed to say "really?!" as he struggled to regain his own train of thought. I was ready to take the girls back to the kid room but he kept sounding like he was wrapping it up with "and my final point" or "in conclusion" and "something to leave you with". I just wanted to stand up and yell "let's wrap this thing up already Father, I've got diapers to change!" But it's ok. We survived. And the beautiful thing about it is once the girls go outside and start running around the "cuteness" factor erases their distracting behavior from the minds of the congregation. The mati (evil eyes) are replaced by doe eyed yiayia's handing down cookies and cheek pinches. And rather than complaing I had people coming up to tell me how entertaining they were during the service. ... not sure that's what you want from church as I think the focus should be elsewhere, but hey, whatever works. And more than anything it made Gina happy that even though she couldn't be there (since it was a big thing for her family) that I still got the girls there to represent our little part of the family. And that makes all challanges worth the work. A happy momma is a happy daddy. By the way, had to share this pic with you from yesterday's zoo trip. As you can clearly see we got out of our bubble for the day by getting in to one of theirs.