Baptism

Baptism, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

The final event of our family vacation was A's baptism. We'd asked our friends in CT to be her godparents and decided to baptize her there instead of here in Michigan. We attended mass, which was held in the basement of the church because the church was not air conditioned and the heat we'd experienced in NY was just as oppressive there. Unfortunately, the ceremony took place in the church, which was easily 100 degrees. The priest took his time explaining the ceremony and its meaning to us, which was lovely, but we were literally dripping with sweat. A. was literally screaming and writhing in misery. It was hard to hang onto a sweaty, wiggling baby. I sat down for a few minutes and nursed her, and she quieted, but only briefly. By the time he poured the water over her head, her hair was already soaking wet.

Our kids and our friends' children were perfectly behaved throughout this, amazingly. They have 5 children and this is a photo of all of us at the church. Afterwards, we went back to their house and had a lovely meal and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before loading up the car and beginning our journey home.