I have had a few times when I've felt completely vulnerable, most of them related to my profession (clinical psychologist) before having a family. Bipolar patients off of meds, having a resident of a group home for behaviorally challenged young males claiming paternity of my unborn child, family stalked by schizophrenic tenant evicted from my father's apartment building). I've always been fortunate in being level-headed, I've filed police reports and know our local police, and I am lucky that the last incident involved the psychiatric unit that I worked on and I was able to get information by knowing people who still worked there and I was able to get the police involved prior to his release. OK, so you know I've had my share of run-ins with the crazies.

Today we were at Mass, noon, and we werethere minus one child with my inlaws (my mother was elsewhere in the Church). We were the first people in line for Communion and it appeared that another Eucharistic minister came up from the side of the church. At this point our pastor and deacon are handing out Communion center row. I saw this wasn't a Eucharistic Minister, rather a person with a glazed crazy look. He point his finger behind his ears and started hissing like he was a Satan/snake combination. He paced frantically and made his way toward an icon. At this point because we were the second family in the Communion line, I motioned for my husband to go because other big men were coming up onto the altar. I told my kids to return to the pews and I left to the Narthex to call 911. One of the security for parking is a cop and he called for back-up and they got the guy off the altar, behind it and out the church onto the main street.

Very scary. People go to the movies to think their seeing a premier and bad things happen. This crazy could have had a gun, and I sent my kids back to their pew. I told my husband to help out and apprehend the crazy. Granted there were seven to eight large fathers who headed and corralled and there wasn't incident after that.

Ultimately, it sort of put things in perspective. Doesn't matter that I should fret about a coupon expiring and be upset over a $3.00 expired ECB. Everyone was very subdued after this event on the way home.

My younger daughter is sensitive and she felt bad that she didn't buy my oldest son a present at his birthday in August. We were at Target so that my youngest could spend his Target gift card from his birthday. Daughter asked if she could buy the oldest son a remote-controlled hexbug because that is what he really wanted and didn't get. I lent her the $20 and she paid me back when she got home.

So while I'm hoping to get more organized, I will find a balance between fretting over stupid stuff and I'll spend more time smelling the roses. And supporting my kids buying gifts to show love and kindness to their sibs.