Holy Friday

This morning we went to the Royal Hours of Pascha. Most of my time was spent in the narthex, but Timmo managed to get all the way through the gospel reading for the ninth hour. We did plenty of prostrations and censing ourselves. In addition to "amen," he has started to copy his sister and her new word: "wisdom!"

The unnailing vespers in the afternoon is a blur, but I was quite surprised that Timmo voluntarily crawled under the kouvouklion. (Traditionally children crawl underneath in the shape of a cross after the vespers service.) His big brother finally didn't put up a fuss this year, and I dragged Lucia through. But then we couldn't get Timmo away! He really liked it, and kept going.  It may not have been "proper," but after Lucia's earlier screaming it was nice to have all three children laughing happily together beneath the tomb of the Life-Giver.

The children and I stayed home from Lamentations in the evening. (Two services a day seems to be the limit.) The big kids got to watch part of a Chicago church's service and they tried to sing along. Teddy did pretty well with the Greek.

His prostrations crack me up.

He just makes me happy.