Jane Humphrey gets lost at the Commissary

The inevitable happened today: I lost Jane at the Commissary. If you're unfamiliar with a Commissary, think Wal-Mart-sized grocery store, but on the Naval base. Because it was the Commissary, and on the Naval base, and not a Saturday, I was much more relaxed about letting her convince me to let her stay in the produce department and watch a movie on the big screen, instead of keeping her right with me while I shopped.

Jane wants limes.

Most often, Jane wants to get her own cart and shop with me while I hold my breath and brace for impact, hoping she won't run into my ankles with her little cart.

Shopping is so tiring.

Other days, she's content to fall asleep in the cart. This makes getting paper towels, toilet paper, and frozen chicken something of a trick because you have to really plan, so as not to bury the baby, but it makes everything else a lot easier.

Jane looking at a map at Sea World. Yes, that is my mobile
number on her forearm in Sharpie marker. Why do you ask?

Then there are days like today, when she was awake, but preferred not to shop, but to hang back in the produce department where the big screen TV is showing a kid movie. On these occasions, I'll pull out a fine Sharpie and write some vital info on her forearm, just in case she wan-ts to go on walkabout. Except that today I didn't have my purse, only my ID and a credit card in my back pocket. I left her with strong instructions to stay right there, that I was only going to get apple juice, and that I would be right back.

Of course when I returned, she was nowhere to be seen.

After a pass from one end of the commissary to the other craning my neck, I headed toward Customer Service, just as a woman who works there is approaching me, and watching me crane my neck down the isles.

"Did you lose a kid?" she asked me.

"Yes. A little girl. Yes I did," I confessed.

She looked at me with a well-it-took-you-long-enough look, and I felt appropriately guilty as I followed her back to Customer Service.

I look behind the counter to see Jane sitting at the desk drawing and chatting with the manager. She looks up to see me as the stocker says, "This your girl?"

"Yes," I smile. I look at Jane, who says nothing.

"Hey. You know who I am?" I ask her facetiously. 

She shakes her head no. 

"What?" I ask. 

She laughs. "Hi, Mommy." She walks around the counter as the manager asks me if my name is Humphrey. Humphrey? Where did that come from?

"She told us her name was Jane Humphrey. She was very good. Very helpful..."

"Humphrey? Our name is Drexler... Jane, what did you tell them? What's your name?"

"Jane," she says shyly.

"What's your last name?" I ask her. "You know your last name..."

"I'm three," she says. 

"See," the manager says, "Humphrey."

The light bulb comes on. "'Um free.'" I imitate Jane's pronunciation. "She can't pronounce three. She said: I'm three."

We all have a good laugh, and I take little Jane Humphrey home. We'll have to work on the last name a bit. And maybe I'll have that Sharpie handy more often.

"Him have no more money!" - Jane cleans out Fr Al

Christ blessing the children

In the Orthodox Church, we customarily greet a priest by asking for a blessing. We cross our right hand over our left and cup them in front of us as if receiving water being poured into them, we bow slightly to the priest, and say, for example, "Good morning, Father. May I have a blessing?" 

It's a great custom, one that is being lost to some degree as we become a more casual society, greeting priests with a handshake, or as we would a peer, with, "Oh, Hi, Father." While this may be better than not saying anything at all, it's important that we as parents and teachers instruct our children that a priest is our spiritual guide and should be treated as such. For many westerners, bowing your head and asking for a blessing may seem an especially stilted or overly formal manner of greeting, but when compared to  casually greeting a Karate master at a dojo, or an admiral in the US Navy by his first name and no salute, the taboo becomes clearer. 

Instilling a sense of respect combined with approach-ability is one of the goals of teaching our children to greet the priest properly and ask for a blessing.

Father Alexander issued a challenge at the beginning of Lent, that the first child to ask for a blessing after church on Sundays would get a prize, which was sometimes a shiny dollar coin. It didn't take long for Jane to figure that one out. Now she asks for a blessing almost every time she sees him, and because of the frequency he now gives her nickels or whatever coin he has in his pocket.


Last night after church we were in the church hall and ready to head home just as Father entered. When Jane saw him, she spontaneously ran to him and gave him a hug. Very few children do this, and Father chuckled and reflexively reached into his pocket for a coin. As he did so, Jane knew exactly what he was looking for and stood there expectantly. 


As he fished for a coin, I told him, "Father, you shouldn't pay her just for a hug..." Just then he pulled his pocket out to show us there was nothing there - not even lint! (how does anyone manage that one?) He laughed, "I have nothing, I have nothing..." patted Jane on the head and went past us into the church hall.


Jane glanced behind her at Father as he walked away then turned back with wide eyes, a mischievous smile, and her hands over her mouth like she knew something, and said giggling, "Him no have more money! I got it all last day!" ("Last day", like last week or last month, is any time in the recent past.)


Steve and I looked at each other. "Jane thinks she cleaned him out!"
We weren't sure whether to be laughing at the fact that Jane thinks she took all Father's money, or alarmed at the fact that she thinks it's really funny that she took all his money.


On the flip side, now Father doesn't have to give her coins when she asks for a blessing any more.