“Today is the beginning of our salvation,
And the revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
"Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!"
Troparion of the Annunciation

This troparion was especially beautiful, and we had almost a full choir, too.

Saying I liked it is funny when I still don't really know what a troparion is and where to find it. I managed to figure out the first two lines and the last few lines. Sigh. I just stopped singing in the middle, lost. I am most frustrated because my kids are asking, "What are we singing?" and I have no idea. Haha.

I noticed last night, in a particularly long service for an evening, that my daughter who is six is 5000% percent interested. She loves prostration, wearing a head covering, she is bold and unembarrassed to step forward and touch the priest's robe during the Entrance, then she crosses herself and darts back to me...oh, it's lovely. Last night she stepped a little too close and Father John took a tiny pause mid-step, so we had a talk about touching the HEM and not getting in the way. With her, as soon as she sees someone doing something, she wants to know why and how and she jumps right in. At first, I didn't know what to do with this. I thought maybe it would be out of place, or disruptive. But all I ever hear is, "She is so sweet." She venerated the icon of the Annunciation, and had to jump a little to kiss it. Her metanoias are much smoother than mine. Maybe because she's not nervous like me and thinking whoswatchingmeamIdoingitrightohnoIcompletelyforgothow!!

Zachary, however, is absolutely terrified. Well, fascinated AND terrified at the same time. My husband talked to Father and he recommended a book about conversion that Zach can read on his own. I hope it helps. He is so busy wondering what to do with himself he completely missed the whole congregation prostrating. I tapped him on the shoulder and he was clueless about what was going on. Maybe because he was too busy staring up at the new iconography on the ceiling, of the Pantocrator.

In the Protestant churches we have been in, Beth has always been a little disruptive in "adult church". Put a little girl in a pew and tell her to sit still and make no noise for an hour...well, good luck. The first Anglican church we attended had a children's service, which I helped with several times at the request of the priest's wife (I homeschool, therefore I got the mad skillz?). There was a shortened (read: dumbed down) version of the Apostles Creed and some bibles reading. A commonly played game was "Forgiveness Tag" instead of Freeze Tag. We took the kids out of the kid's service, and they were the only children in the adult service...they didn't like us much but we really felt that attending the service with us was much more formative for them.

I think it's harder to convert, and to make any big life change, when you have children over 5. Sure, the babies are hard to deal with in new places because they fuss and complain and need all sorts of attention, but the older kids know what's going on. They hear us discussing beliefs and see us reading and reading and reading, and they know something is happening. We've done of lot of "Wait...this isn't what we're looking for," in their short lives, and I think Zach is somewhat unsure if we'll ever stay at a church.

Lord, have mercy.