Mortified after wardrobe malfunction during weekday liturgy with toddler

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• − opinion#2075 1 likes at the source

  Stuff like this just happens. Toddlers act like toddlers and you handled it as well as anyone could. I'd sew a stitch or put a button on the dress, and if anyone brings it up, just own that it was embarrassing and have a laugh about it.

  • − opinion#2086 1 likes at the source

    Thanks so much for this! Yeah, I'll need to find something more permanent than the clasp 😅
• − opinion#2076 1 likes at the source

  Don't let this mishap get you down. Father Paul Truebenbach says in his catechetical lectures that becoming Orthodox is usually extremely chaotic because the enemy will use every trick he has to stop it. The enquiring stage is probably the most dangerous time, since the enemy has the strongest motive to derail you while still having the most freedom to act. So consider becoming a catechumen, which may bring you more protection from the angels and the Holy Spirit. I'd also suggest talking to the priest about whether it helps your child to join you while you're enquiring. It might end up confusing or harmful if you don't end up becoming Orthodox (so becoming a catechumen might solve that too). I honestly don't know, but the priest can surely advise what's best for your family if you stay an enquirer. For me, having just gone through enquiry, catechesis and baptism, that whole stretch was completely wild. A man even showed up at our door with a huge inverted cross and we were followed for a while by a gang of openly satanist witches (huge pentagram earrings and cloaks, satan's sigil tattooed and on biker vests, comically satanic witchcraft; until baptism their black magic also mostly seemed to work as advertised, causing all kinds of emotional chaos, "bad luck", witches and demons killing us in dreams and so on; it took near constant prayer in spiritual warfare to do basically…

  • − opinion#2087 1 likes at the source

    Thank you for your kind and thoughtful message. Your story is truly so interesting! We have absolutely felt so many strange challenges and hardships since we started inquiring and sometimes I've wondered if it really is spiritual warfare! We definitely want to become catechumens, I'm just not sure when that time will come. We are 100% joining the church so we'll just keep going to the classes and services and learning. I understand it's a journey and I have so much to do! I still can't believe you had actual satanic followings, I'm so glad you've been chrismated and things have calmed down for you!

    • − opinion#2091 1 likes at the source

      Happy to help however I can. I could be wrong, but I believe a priest can make you catechumens at any time. Being a catechumen is "joining the church" in a spiritual and legal sense (for example, being buried as Orthodox if you die as a catechumen). Of course, the regular catechumen program or lectures may have a set schedule and you might have to be patient with that, but I see no reason the priest can't make you catechumens now. I'm new, so maybe I'm missing something, but in our case we desperately wanted to become Orthodox and our priest simply catechized us outside the normal programs. And yes, 100% spiritual warfare. In our case, we listened to Father Paul's lecture about how very overt agents of the enemy commonly harass enquirers and catechumens, and I didn't doubt it but filed it under "happens to other Orthodox", and literally a week later there's a giant inverted cross at our door! Complete with a "death omen" (and definitely not the cross of Saint Peter). Turns out we had reported a gang, with heavy satanic and witchcraft practitioners and imagery, for crime (which we didn't know at the time, it just looked like obvious crime that should be reported), and they took it personally. Still, no actual insurmountable obstacle ever came up in our path to Holy Orthodoxy. God is great! What I noticed is the demons seem to have license to stop almost anything the first…
  • − opinion#2088 1 likes at the source

    Wow, that's intense. Were you converting from another form of Christianity, or from another religion or atheism? Hope you don't mind me asking.

    • − opinion#2092 1 likes at the source

      It was extremely intense, and since the gang was clearly threatened enough by us to show up at our home, there was obviously some level of danger. I got so afraid of not making it to baptism, because I felt if I died unbaptized I'd be so disappointed in myself, if not condemned to hell fire. Which partly answers your question, which I don't mind at all: I grew up in a Pentecostal church without infant baptism. I left as a teenager when I figured it was time to get baptized but then ran into speaking in tongues, which shocked me (it wasn't practiced openly) since I'd always understood speaking in tongues as speaking a foreign language to spread the Gospel. Then as a young adult I decided to go out into the world and assumed I'd find true christians by their fruits, like helping the poor. So I built a career in development aid. Unfortunately, it turns out the development aid world is completely corrupt and was run by literally the devil, so I didn't find true Christians there; and if I did, then the enemy blinded me and I didn't see it. I then drifted into anarcho-Christianity and called myself non-denominational, though I meant actually non-denominational, not part of a non-denominational church with set doctrines and dogma (like everyone being able to take communion). Rather I saw myself as protesting protestantism and practicing following Christ without a priest (like if I…
• − opinion#2077 1 likes at the source

  I'm a single mom catechumen and last week during the litany of the catechumens, while we were standing up front and our priest was praying (big parish, totally silent except for Father's prayer), I was holding my toddler son and he yells out PUT ME DOWN YOURE HURTING MY PENIS. So I embarrassingly put him down, and he goes AMEN. Lololol. He's also tried to pull my dresses/skirts up many times, so I wear a onesie bodysuit, the shorts kind, so I'm always covered even under my clothes 😂 don't be embarrassed. Kids do horribly embarrassing things in Liturgy. Christ knows our hearts. When you go back, no matter how hard that situation was, Christ will rejoice in your obedience. Use it as a humbling moment to look at what it brought out in you that you didn't like, adjust, pray, and move forward. I promise these things are more common than you think.

  • − opinion#2089 1 likes at the source

    Here's another one to make you feel better too: once right at the end of the homily my son stands up (everyone's sitting and it's dead silent) and starts saying mom my butt itches over and over. Lollll. Everyone with kids knows kids are unhinged. Inquiring and being a catechumen means there will be A LOT of things trying to keep you away from the church. Persist. It might be the first time you felt embarrassed at a Liturgy, but probably won't be the last lol.
• − opinion#2078 1 likes at the source

  Really not a big deal. Once I was standing, breastfeeding my baby in a cry room next to the nave. Boob out, no cover. There was a window letting people in the cry room look into the nave. For some reason I assumed it was a one-way mirror. No idea why, I must have been tired. Well, it wasn't lol. Don't even worry.
• − opinion#2079 1 likes at the source

  Forgive me, but this is a crucial learning moment and I'd be remiss not to point out what you should be paying attention to. Hi! I am a Subdeacon with 40+ years in the church, grown kids, one married, one a Reader, and I've been married 30+ years. I have a catechism teaching certification and a blessing from my priest to contribute here. Listen my dear. Don't worry. It's nothing a priest hasn't seen before. Believe me. What keeps going over in your mind is A. not what anyone else is thinking about, B. the embarrassment is a combo-punch of the enemy whispering how could you plus the ever-present Pride, the downfall of us all, and C. you did the right thing until you tried to stay when you could have taken the kiddo outside. You don't need to be there for Communion, and kids suddenly yelling right then or during the gospel or sermon is par for the course. It's for parents to learn patience. Of course we feel frustrated when things don't go our way. That's kind of the point. Our way needs to go, sometimes even when it seems we're doing the right thing. The really out-there parents think they're entitled and get angry at kids for being disruptive. Don't be one of them! Keep your expectations fair for the child's age. Littles are random, and young mothers are often in and out, nothing wrong with that. In the ancient church, inquirers weren't even allowed in the nave after the…
• − opinion#2080 1 likes at the source

  Big hugs and sympathy from a fellow mom trying to introduce a toddler to services, who has also left multiple times when things didn't go as planned. I've been practicing a few things with my child, like sitting near the doors for a quick exit, walking them around the parish garden and trying again later, practicing quiet time at home near the prayer corner, letting them hold their own psalter so they feel like they're participating. Honestly a lot of it is in my own head, we're allowed to be human, we can't control everything, as hard as we try. I let an elderly woman bully me out of a parish in yakima because she didn't like my 2 year old excitedly running in and exclaiming how beautiful the murals of the saints were. I'm learning there will be people like that everywhere, and it's up to us to make a place for ourselves in this world, in this case a sacred place of worship, without worrying about other people's opinions. God says you belong there, and so does your child. I hope it doesn't stop you from going back like it did me, it's okay, we got this my sister in Christ.

  • − opinion#2090 1 likes at the source

    Thank you so much! And thank you for all these wonderful ideas! It was especially hard today with such small attendance and mostly older people there, I felt so exposed, so it was overall a really rough time 🥴 but nothing will stop me from going back, of that I'm sure! I was just so so humiliated I felt I needed some reassurance on top of my prayers today🫶
• − opinion#2081 1 likes at the source

  All I'll say is, I was at liturgy last week, this little boy was pushing his toy car up n down the middle, this one girl was laughing hysterically, and it made everyone who saw them smile and laugh. No one will judge, and if they do, that's something they need to work on. Don't be disheartened by it, things happen, feelings occur and you're allowed to feel them. When you feel up for it, go back, don't pressure yourself, you've got this <33
• − opinion#2082 1 likes at the source

  Obligatory not Orthodox (Lutheran) but years and years ago my oldest brother ran up to my dad (who was the pastor) during a service yelling "daddy daddy daddy!" during the words of institution for the Eucharist. He wrapped himself up in my dad's chasuble and wouldn't come out, apparently quite the hassle. My mom was extremely embarrassed, but nobody said anything bad about it. As it turns out, people are generally happy when there are signs of life in their congregation. You might be surprised how happy everyone is that you're there, and are just hoping you keep coming back despite this (assuming they even noticed and remembered in the first place).
• − opinion#2083 1 likes at the source

  If it helps, when my sister was around 2 or 3 she pulled her underwear off under her dress and started doing handstands right in the aisle. And another time there was a pysanky egg workshop with professionally made eggs for sale, and my mom brought us early to help the lady set up. My brother, also about 2-3, threw and smashed around $200 worth of eggs in maybe 15 seconds.
• − opinion#2084 1 likes at the source

  I've seen plenty of accidental boobs in church, it happens 😂 Toddlers yanking shirts down, moms nursing in rooms you wouldn't guess, older folks who end up a bit disheveled. You're not alone, toddlers are gonna toddler. We have around 15-20 of them and services are always entertaining! They don't bother most people, and you just take them out when they can't settle.
• − opinion#2085 1 likes at the source

  I got attacked by two different dogs totally out of nowhere, for NO reason, on my walks during the same week I started looking into converting to orthodoxy. And I'm pregnant too. The comments about the "chaos" are very true, and I'm only at the very beginning.