Our Second First Holy Communion

Ah! What an incredibly hectic week we’ve had.

I’ve been playing losing defense over the past five days against a nasty, aggressive head cold that’s now migrated down to my chest. While that skirmish was going down I had to escort Patch on a girl scouts hike, scrub the house top to bottom and whip out the machete to do the year’s first yardwork to make it safe for my in-laws flying in. I purchased a couple cases of beer and a couple bottles of wine, and fielded two phone interviews with prospective employers with all this going on.

Wait – Clean the house? Yardwork? In-laws flying in? Beer and wine?

Sounds suspiciously like a party.

Yup.

Saturday was Patch’s First Holy Communion, four years and two weeks on the heels of Little One’s initial celebration of the sacrament.

And as I did then, I dispensed the Blood of Christ to my daughter for her first sip of Our Lord’s precious blood.

So, despite a fearful moment of dis-equilibrium up on the altar (please God – don’t let me pass out in front of 600 people at my daughter’s first communion!) the ceremony was wonderful, tugged at the heartstrings, and went without a hitch. Father summoned up the young boys and girls and quizzed them good-naturedly on the sacrament of Holy Communion, and Patch made us overly proud eagerly and zealously raising her flailing hand as high as possible to answer every question she could. It was all over before we knew it, and we all drove off to a local eatery where we reserved the back room for a specialty pizza party.

We returned to the homestead late in the afternoon, where Patch opened up her envelopes and a gift from her godmother – an artist’s set of pencils, pastels, paints and pad. She absolutely one-hundred-percent loved it. In fact, she’s used it every day since, morning and night. And she’s quite talented.

Me, I snuck upstairs and took a two-hour nap.

Congratulations, Patch! You make us all proud!