I've been trying to pray the rosary with the kids more often this Lent. They are currently 3.5 years and 18 months old so attention spans are short. In order to get through an entire rosary I have taken to making the rosary mystery announcement into an exciting little story.
All of them start like this.
Me: Who knows what the ___th _____ mystery is?
John: ME!
Me: What is it?
John: I don't know....
Repeat for all mysteries. Eventually, he'll say something besides I don't know. (Maybe? Hopefully?)
From there I tell a little story about the mystery. Because this is mostly to draw their attention back to the rosary, these stories have become kind of hilarious due to John's responses. I wanted to write them down before the kids get too big to do this anymore.
Joyful Mysteries
1st Joyful Mystery - The Annunciation
Me: This is when the angel Gabriel came to tell Mary she was going to have a baby!
John: Where?!
Me: A long time ago.
John: Is the baby going to want to play with my toys?
Me: John, the baby was Jesus.
John: Oh....so he only play with church toys then?
2nd Joyful Mystery - The Visitation
Me: This is when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth to help her have her baby John the Baptist!
John: ME?!
Me: No, different John.
3rd Joyful Mystery - The Nativity
Me: The Nativity is when baby Jesus was finally born - Christmas!
John: Momma, it's not Christmas time. It's not Advent time. It is Lent. Time.
Me: I know John, but Jesus was still born on Christmas.
John: Oh, maybe he get presents later then.
4th Joyful Mystery - The Presentation
Me: This is when Jesus' mommy and daddy brought him to the temple. It was a very special day, like how your mommy and daddy brought you to the church to be baptized.
John: He got water poured on his head?
Me: No, that came later.
John: Oh good. Jesus not very dirty. He don't need no water.
5th Joyful Mystery - The Finding in the Temple
Me: One time, Jesus went missing for three days! He did not tell his parents were he was going.
John: What?!
Me: Yup. His mommy and daddy were very worried. They looked everywhere for him. Eventually they found him in the temple teaching the teachers.
John: He got in trouble?
Me: He got in a little trouble. But then he decided to be very good and listen to his mommy and daddy. He always listened to them after that.
John: Jesus was a good boy?
Me: I think so.
Let's hope John doesn't get any sneaky ideas from that last one. I'm hoping we cling onto the "listen to mommy and daddy" part.
Stay turned for the Sorrowful Mysteries!
Hilarious! I love the "he only plays with church toys then?" part. And missing my child for 3 days would be bad enough, but I recently found out/realized that Jesus was actually missing for 5 days (Mary and Joseph were 1 day's travel away before they realized he was gone, so there's a day travel to get back and then the 3 days searching! Poor Mary! Yes, let's hope your John clings to the listening part :) )
ReplyDeleteThese are so adorable!!! The 4th Mystery one is pretty great :)
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