C goes to kindergarten in a Catholic school. The first Friday of every month is a half-day so the older kids can go to mass. Wisely, the preschoolers and kindergarteners are allowed to go home. This past week, however, C’s class went to mass instead of computer class.

“Son,” I ask “how long have you had computer class?” This is the first we’ve heard about it. “Since the first day of school dad,” is the answer. Ah. Unsurprisingly the school has failed to tell us something else. We move on to mass.

“Were you a good boy at mass?” K asks. Furious nodding. Having seen him in church with us, I am suspicious, but then remembering that he is one of 24 in his class, I realize that ‘good’ may be subjective…

M runs in from the kitchen, “was there a puppet show?” he yells. K and I realize that we may have some work to do.

Fast forward to Monday, I am walking C to school. We’re talking about kids in his class and what he thought they were doing over the weekend. He turns serious. “Dad,” he asks, “how did Jesus die?” Oy. I try and make a 4 year old version of the crucifixion. “Well son,” deep breath, “Jesus was a teacher, but some people didn’t like what he was teaching so they arrested him.” Good job, dad.

“He went to jail?” Oops, we may have just made Jesus a bad guy in the child’s head. “Er, yes. But, he didn’t do anything wrong, just some mean people didn’t like him so they arrested him, beat him and then they killed him.” How did I get here? Why did I not emphasize the b in beat?

“They ate him?” he yells.

“No son, Beat.” I try to explain, “they punched and kicked him.”

“Then they killed him?”

“Yup.”

“Did the bad guys die too?” he asks. Indeed, they did. “Well, that’s okay then.”

Fast forward to this evening, a conversation about what each C and M did during the day is broken by a yell from C of “One more day until Jesus dies!” The crucifixion gets us a day off from school. All is well.