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Sarah M
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And if you do, how do you handle busy toddlers there?
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Kristen in TN
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We go to daily Mass. Handling toddlers, well, pick them up, put them down, ask them (whispering, of course) where Father is. I let them crawl around the pew a bit as long as it's not too distracting and they are quiet about it. Very rarely do I have to take them out. Sometimes she just wants to be held by a sibling. One day as we got into the pew she started to make some noise. The old lady in front of us asked it she wanted to sit with her. She shook her head yes, but had a sour face the entire time. Now if she starts anything, that lady just looks back and smiles and she gets real still and quite. 
We now have 5 children. I have taken them all to daily Mass, every now and again with my husband, but usually just with me. Somehow it just works out. Sometimes I am exhausted, but then I receive the Eucharist and it all seems worth it.
Hope this helps.
God bless,
Kristen in TN
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Rachel May
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We go once during the week now although the kids are asking to go more often so we may step it up.  Our daily mass community and priest are very supportive, so we go even though it can be a pain for me. The chapel here leaves cookies out after daily mass, so I do allow the kids one cookie after which is more of a bribe to have them want to go back as opposed to being something they get for good behavior.
I once asked a friend how she got her kids to behave during mass. She said, "I just keep going until they realize that I'm not going to give up." It's working!
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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KC in TX
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We go three times a week. It can be draining at times, but I enjoy it. My youngest is the only one who causes trouble, but it'd becoming less frequent. There are a lot of homeschool families in this parish so we aren't the only ones making noise. The elderly parishioners are used to all of us now.
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wife to Ben (10/94),
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Michaela ('01)
Emma ('03)
Jordan ('05)
And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)
The Cabbage Patch
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JodieLyn
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I don't go to daily Mass.. times never seem to work out for me (we're very limited)
But as the other ladies have pointed out.. the less you take for the kids to do, the more they seem to get the idea of how to behave. We tried when my oldest 3 were little things like taking books.. even ones just for Mass.. and I found it to be harder that way. Like they expected to be entertained more.. so we did away with everything.. we'd get there soon enough for a drink of water before Mass and that was it.
It's brutally hard at time.. but at others not nearly so. And I've found as the older kids are trained the younger kids train up easier in general.. and I can actually take all 7 of my kids now by myself and find it easier on me than when I was only taking 4 kids (oldest 4.5 yrs).
Of course there are exceptions to the rule.. I might tuck a small soft book or such into my bag for a particularly long Mass.. or when I have a teething baby I'll put a handful of cherrios in my pocket so that I can pop one into the baby's mouth periodically (no cherrios everywhere because I control them) it helps with the teething and so calms the baby and they're a whole lot more quiet than the usual hard toys that my teething babies like to chew on.
Oh and we also play the "where is" game.. where are the candles, where is Jesus (the tabernacle and the crusifix), where are the red flowers, where's the lady with the big hat.
This is great as long as they're fairly quiet about finding the things.
I also whisper a lot about "Look! watch what the Priest is doing, he's __________"
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-Sir Walter Scott
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SusanJ
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We go to daily Mass but I am very fortunate that dh goes with me. I honestly am not sure I'd get there much if it were up to me to go on my own. My 3yo son has always been pretty good and is lately quite well-behaved at Mass. He sits on dh's lap and dh narrates the Mass to him and points out things to look for (very, very quietly). Seeing how much ds is picking up really keeps us going. My daughter, 16 mo, is an almost unmitigated trial at Mass. She tempts me to despair very often. For weeks on end she would literally shriek at the top of her lungs as soon as we crossed the threshold of a church. I always go up for communion but spend most of Mass in the lobby with the doors closed. We got a brief respite right after Christmas where she was good as gold but she's acting up again. I find that if I remember to bring in a sling and hold her through all of Mass even if we're in the back things are much better. She's too big to hold if she's fighting hard--and she always is--but I can do it with the help of a sling and she gets it that she can't run around in the back when she misbehaves. I allow more freedom in the pew than in the back of the church.
This is all just a long-winded way of saying that I understand the challenges of having a squirmy toddler at Mass but my dh is unbelievably encouraging about us going and persevering and praying as we can and offering up the trials. It has been a blessing.
It also really, really helps to know that the priests support you being there. Our family has had pretty serious issues with this and we recently changed parishes over this issue. The priests we are with now are very enthusiastic about parents bringing children--even noisy children--to Mass and have made announcements from the pulpit supporting us as well. That really takes the edge off when you wonder if people are annoyed by you.
I'm going to stop rambling now . . . there are several old threads on this topic as well.
Susan
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Life Together
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SeaStar
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My parents attend a small church, and the priest has daily mass in a small side chapel. The mass lasts about 15 minutes, start to finish. It is perfect for my 3 and 5 yo. We are literally right in front of the altar; they can see and hear everything. They can see the priest is an ordinary man (comes into the chapel in his tennis shoes).
My own parish has daily mass that lasts about 45 minutes. I could not do that on a daily basis with my crew.
Maybe you could ask around and find a mass that fits your needs? We do not attend daily (though my parents do), but we are trying to go more often.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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graciefaith
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We use to but we stopped. Now that i have a 3mo, it's very hard b/c it's a extremely small chapel and Mass is 30min long. For my older girls, 5yo and 6yo, it's not hard for them to sit through it. They're use to it and behave well. When awake, my 3mo does not like to sit in her carseat and she doenst want me to just hold her, but walk around and hold her. Even in a sling, i have to walk around. There is no room in the chapel for that. I miss it and now that we get up extra early and get school done in time for Mass, i wish we could go.
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Ouiz
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I would love to go, but I'm too much of a coward to "go it alone" with all 7 of mine. The older ones would do great, but my 3 month old has a habit of getting fussy around that time, and in our small chapel there'd be no place for me to go...
sigh.
Before we had kids, my husband and I went to daily Mass, and I sure do miss it!
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Chez Ouiz
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Marcia
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Yes we too went everyday when we were dating and first married.
I try to mix it up a little. I take the four kids by myself at least once during the week. Then we also try to visit an adoration chapel once a week. The other days I read aloud from the bible to them or read my Daily Office to them. Mass is a great learning experience (read discipline) for them and me....it makes the weekend with daddy seem like a cake walk!
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LucyP
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I don't go daily yet. To walk to church, attend Mass and then walk home will be two hours out of the day, so I am holding back on going daily until after I am actually recieved and can take Communion. Then we will build up gradually! Right now, our dc are good - 4 yos, 9 mo baby. But I do remember ds was a big challenge from about 18mo-2.5y so I am rather dreading that with dd.
Looking back, what we did wrong with ds was take small books or toys for him. With baby, she is in a wrap or sling on my tummy, and her only "toy" is her bottle which she has because it is a mealtime for her. In the nappy bag I have a teething necklace for her and some holy cards - that's it. She's quiet but if she squeaks I say shush and she is quiet. We sit near the front [not right at the front because we're still at the stage of copying the congregation about kneeling/standing etc] and get ds to particpate alongside us. I feel sad when I see children just totally "opted out" playing or reading as if they weren't even at church at all...although I know maybe there is no other option for them.
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donnalynn
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Hmmm...let's see, I suggested this morning that we go to Daily Mass for Lent - did you all hear the wails and screams of my five year-old coming across the country this morning?
sigh, No, we do not go to daily Mass.
*I* would love to go to daily Mass and have seriously thought about it often but I finally decided that just because it was something *I* wanted to do - didn't necessarily mean it was a great choice for my family. So I'm going to try to add one weekday Mass a week for Lent with all the children. The girls are old enough to take turns watching the boys while I take one daughter and myself to Mass the other days.
The five year-old announced today that he was giving up Mass for Lent. 
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helene
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My holy husband takes all the kids in our family who have received First Communion to daily Mass at 7am before work. I stay home with the littles and trust God to send me the grace I need through my husband and the older half of the family.
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SallyT
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We go twice a week, generally, though not always all of us. And I have external motivations to get there: on Wednesdays we have high-school co-op in the basement of a parish church, so we make the effort to get up earlier and get there for 8:15 Mass. I love this Mass -- both the parish priests are wonderful and good homilists (my two olders, 14 and 10, say they always come away feeling they've learned something), and it's in a little side chapel which opens right onto the main church, so if I have to get up with somebody, I can do so unobtrusively. My youngers, 5 and 4, are very, um, high-energy and, um, loud, I guess you'd have to say, but they really behave at this Mass. We're fairly close to Father, even if we're not sitting in the front, and they can see and hear easily. Also, my husband's schedule this semester permits him to come with us, which is an extra treat.
On Fridays we go to 8:15 Mass in our own parish, because my older kids sing in the parish treble choir, which sings for the all-school Mass on Friday. I would not choose to go to this particular Mass, but since the big kids have to be there, it seems silly for others of us not to be there, too. Our own parish priest is a lovely, holy man, but not a particularly great homilist or liturgist; we have to sit in the back, because the school kids fill up the church; it's just a more restless, less reverent atmosphere. So the littles tend to be more restless themselves. But we generally go anyway.
I'm undisciplined enough that if I did not have these events in my week to MAKE me get everyone up and out the door, I'm sure I wouldn't. Which just shows you that God in His wisdom finds ways . . .
Sally
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VeronicaB
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We don't make daily Mass - but lately we've made an extra Mass per week. The homeschool get-together each week includes Mass so that helps. Remembering that even though Mass is really important, special, highest form of prayer and all, still sometimes it doesn't work out and if that's okay with God then I gotta leave it with Him. I used to get Really Frustrated when the littlies wouldn't co-operate. Now I try to keep cool and I've had practice kinda letting go. I used to love making daily Mass when I went to uni in the city - running to catch buses to get to lessons on time. It feels sad that now I have a car and no scheduled lessons its so difficult - but then again, not so many local daily masses in this neck of the woods as there are in the city.
Soul of the Apostolate had a good story about a monk who was being the shepherd at night and united his prayers with the monks in the oratory saying Matins and that was pleasing to God. Ah, to be a shepherd on a nice quiet hillside ... But being a Mum is not bad either - God knows what He wills.
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Do you go to daily mass?
