The boy is one step closer to salvation, as last week he completed the sacrament of Reconciliation.

To all you practicing and recovering Catholics out there alike, you will recall your First Reconciliation as the day you crouched in a booth and whispered all your sins from birth to present to a priest—who I now picture to be either horrified or hysterically laughing—behind a screen. In the end, he’d deliver the antidote to your mortal sins—usually a dose of three Hail Marys and one Our Father. And when you stepped out of that booth, the scorched deposits of your blackened soul renewed, you’d hold your breath for fear that the next time you inhaled, you’d contaminate yourself all over again.

You might think that a boy like Tyler, who at the age of three plunked our cat in the toilet just to see if she’d fit, would be in that booth long enough to examine all six volumes of “Roots” from beginning to end. But Tyler is a boy of little to no words. With the exception of close members of the family and a handful of kid magicians from his class who are able to coax him out of his shell, he speaks to no one. For obvious reasons, this could throw a major wrench in the gears of the Blessed Sacrament.

Father Santiago was willing to accommodate him. To help Tyler communicate his transgressions, he provided him with a picture book, where he could point to a scenario of a child taunting a sibling, disobeying a parent, or other such acts of ungodliness. Suddenly, the dreaded booth didn’t seem so dreadful.

That night, Tyler and I flipped through the book together. There was no picture we could find of a boy placing a cat in a toilet. I stifled a smirk. What Father Santiago didn’t realize was that to cleanse eight years of mischief from my boy’s soul, that book needed more pictures than the Smithsonian. Hopefully, it was enough to give Jesus the gist of it.

When the day finally arrived, Tyler reluctantly tucked in his shirt, sighed as I centered his belt buckle, and scoffed at his stiff, leather shoes.

“I don’t want to talk to the priest,” he sulked.

“You have to,” directed Eva, who was buckled up next to him in her Sunday best. “If you talk to a priest, Santa will bring you more presents.”

“Eva, that is not why we go to confession,” I scolded. “We go because we need to learn to admit when we are wrong. We need to reflect on our mistakes so that we can become better people. And if we’re better people, the world will be a better place.”

Eva sat for a moment in quiet reflection.

“I want to be a better person,” she said decidedly. “Because when I die, I want to go to heaven. Because I’m pretty sure all the American Girl dolls will be there. And My Little Pony. And maybe even Barbie’s Dream House!”

His sister may have missed the point, but I don’t think Tyler did. When he came out of that confession booth, his smile beamed with a mix of pride and relief. And although I may be imagining it, he almost looked purer.

And with that, the burdens of my boy’s soul have been absolved, all is forgiven, the metaphorical slate of his moral history wiped clean.

If only we could get Bessie the Cat to agree.

Whenever I get into a car, my plan is always the same.  I turn up the radio and attempt to blissfully lose myself in thought while the kids jibber-jabber amongst themselves, or better yet, fall unconscious, in the backseat.  Sadly, this usually never happens.  It’s not because they’re fighting or asking me how much longer till we reach our destination.

Quite simply, my kids think I’m a Casey Kasem.

They shout their song requests at me from the backseat, unable to accept that I can’t make them magically appear.  At the onset of every song, they want its name and artist, along with my own personal song analysis.

I usually have no idea what I’m talking about.  But they take my every word as gospel.

“What this one called?” Eva inquired as soon as I turned the key in the ignition, her head popping up in my rearview mirror.

I did what I always do—I repeated the first string of lyrics I could make out.

“It’s called, ‘I’m Just a Girl,’” I reported.

“And who sings it?”

“Gwen Stafani,” I answered, happy that I didn’t have to make anything up. “She sings for a band called ‘No Doubt.’”

She listened for a moment, and then came the inevitable string of questions.

“Why does she keep saying, ‘I’ve had it up to here’?”

“Maybe she’s stuck in a tree,” Tyler offered.  (My boy is the epitome of literal.)

My mind quickly formulated a kindergarten-friendly translation of a lashing out at female stereotypes.

“It’s about a girl who doesn’t like girl things,” I began.  “She likes to play with dirt and bugs and Legos and trucks.  But the rest of the world thinks she should play with dolls and nail polish and tea cups.”

The same thing happens every time I deliver my synopsis.  A quiet fills the car for the duration of the song as they apply their newly acquired interpretation to the lyrics.  With any luck, it lasts all the way until the next one.

This time, they couldn’t hold out that long.

“Listen,” Tyler pointed out.  “She’s playing the guitar.  Boys play the guitar!”

“Yeah!” Eva chimed in.  “Just like Eddie Van Halen!  Someone should tell the lady she CAN do boy things!”

Another moment passed.

“And listen to that!” continued Tyler.  “She’s also playing the drums!”

A universal gasp swept across the backseat.

Next came the keyboards.  And then the special effects.  Then a burst of synchronized harmonizing vocals at the end.

When the song was over, the children sat in quiet reverence.

“Wow,” Eva whispered.  “She just sang two different parts all at once!”

I’m not letting my kids listen to the radio anymore. It’s going to raise serious questions as to why their mom can’t talk and tie their shoelaces at the same time.

In an effort to appease the in-laws, I decided to enroll Tyler in Religious Education, where he begins his journey to complete the six of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.  (Seven, if he decides to become a priest, which would create a major setback in his plans to become a UPS driver. But I digress.)

Recently, his lucky number earned him the privilege of taking home the coveted Sunday School Bible, where he was to select a story from the Old Testament, prepare a summary for his class, and draw a picture.  From Genesis to Deuteronomy he pored, until he finally selected the delightful tale of “Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors.”

(That is, if you’re delighted by a band of brothers ripping a coat off the youngest, throwing him into a pit, selling him into slavery, dipping his coat in goat’s blood and telling their dad he was mauled by wild beats.  But compared to the rest of the Old Testament, that’s about as delightful as it gets.)

Doug sat down with Tyler and helped to create an artistic interpretation of the tale.

Who knew colored camo was all the rage, even back in Biblical times?

And all this time, we thought Doug was a trendsetter.