A Good Catholic Girl’s Guide…

…to Your Child’s Confirmation.

1.  Miss the most important meeting with lots of key information because you didn’t tattoo it on your forehead or write it in permanent marker on one of your children.
2. Have a more organised friend drop off the workbook…then leave it in your car untouched for a week.
3. Forget to choose a Confirmation name and then print out a list and in the style of ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’, choose one at random.  Blindfold is optional.  Still spin them round three times though, just for kicks.
4. Go out the night before the Confirmation.  Answer your phone in the pub and be reminded by your mum that your son is getting Confirmed the following day.  Attempt to sound all breezy and nonchalant whilst thinking ‘F***! I haven’t got his clothes ready!’
5. Ring husband, then attempt to direct someone towards a bag of clothes who, at the age of 36, has yet to look effectively for any item.  Add to the confusion by not remembering whether they are in an Asda carrier bag or a Marks and Spencer’s one.  You JUST KNOW they’re in a wardrobe…you just can’t remember which one.  Then ask for your toddler to be put on the phone to try and get more sense out of him.
6. Get up on the morning of the Confirmation early, if not bright.  Scream like a banshee for the next two hours, knowing that you can absolve your unholy thoughts and hellish language in church.  Resolve to go to Confession more regularly than every twenty five years.
7. Get everyone in the car and check you’ve got everything.  Double check…then slam the door shut at the exact moment you realise your house keys are still inside.
8.  Swear.  A lot. Peer through the letterbox to stare wistfully at your keys that dangle temptingly at a distance that only Inspector Gadget with his ‘Go, Go, Gadget Arms’ could reach.
9. Set off to Confirmation with a seven year old offering advice and worldly wisdom on how to commit the perfect break-in when you return.
10. Get your child to fill in his workbook from the week before as you stop at the petrol station for nappies.  Having run out once again, you are loathe to rely on Divine Intervention if your toddler decides to squeeze one out in the middle of the service.  Especially as you can see in his eyes that it’s part of his grand plan to ensure the morning goes properly tits up.
11. Show exemplary parenting skills by having your son balance his work precariously on a DVD cover whilst you shout out the answers and any tricky spellings from the front seat over the screams of an apoplectic toddler.
12. Sit demurely through the service with a proud smile plastered to your face, all the while thinking, ‘How the hell am I going to climb a ladder in these heels?’
13. Get back from the Confirmation service, stand around in Sunday Best and peer up at the solitary and very small open window on the top floor of the house.  Then try to pick the lock with a handy paper clip that’s lying on the floor, initially confident that watching enough Hawaii 5-0 makes you an expert Navy Seal.
14. When that fails, try to ignore your children’s worryingly zealous pleas to ‘Kick the door in, Daddy!’  Restrain eldest child who is adamant he can shoulder barge it off its hinges if he takes enough of a run-up.
15. Eventually borrow a wobbly ladder from your good friend and neighbour and send your husband up it to watch through splayed fingers, partly terrified he’ll fall but also partly amused that his arse is sticking up in the air like he’s engaged in some sort of obscure mating ritual.
16.  Cheer once inside and vow to leave a set of keys with someone.  You know.  Just in case there’s a next time…