It’s water under the Fridge

In which our Hero takes a few for the team, focusing mostly on the baby

Over the weekend, we poured a little water over Oven’s little brother and called dibs on behalf of our God. I think I like baptisms as events. There’s a certain charm to a baby wearing whites without any care about Labour day. Plus they’re cute and sweet and vulnerable, and you wish them long life, and great things, and wonder about the magic they’ll see. It’s still contemplating your mortality because kids make you do that, but in a fabulously pleasant way.

And, honestly, Fridge is as much a charmer as his brother, a gorgeous little baby boy with squiggly eyebrows. Like someone put their finger at the top of the arc and just smudged it down a little with a thumb.

The ceremony was hilarious. There were two babies up for baptizing, and they had A photographer, and we had four people actively up and moving and taking shots. In that environment, I opt out a little bit. Other people are getting the essential pictures so I don’t have an obligation to push my way in for the best shot, I can just look for targets of opportunity.

Like the baptismal font, which in this church spills into a circular pool that’s lovely but also makes me grin cheerfully to myself at how much it looks like that curious bottomless-yet-stone-lined pit in “300.” Or the back wall, that just plain struck me as pretty. Or the bells.

Or the boy. Since everybody photographic was moving around and dancing for position, I sat off to the side and used the speed of my camera to peek into things. Which is how I got a really nice picture of mom and dad smiling back at bare-gummed grinning crinkly-faced protoBob. And while I was just snapping a few of him where his face was clear and towards me, he suddenly just happened to *look,* right at the camera, even though I’m not sure he’d have any idea of a person or a face or a feature. The look on his face is so curious and gentle that I laugh out loud every time I see it.

Now, in the Catholic tradition, as part of the ceremony, the parents are given a candle and they then light it off the church’s paschal candle. (I think that’s what’s it’s called.) The paschal candle is supposed to represent the light of Christ and by lighting the little candles, the parents are claiming a little of the light and connection to the church for their baby.

Except the paschal candle is a 3 or 4 foot tall tube, high on a stand to make it visible to the whole of the church. And it gets replaced every year in Easter, which was late April this year. Which means that the candle’s pretty close to full height.

And the Godfather, charged with lighting the candle, is short.

Eventually, to the gentle laughter of the crowd, Fridge’s uncle came to the rescue, using his significantly-taller-than-six-foot frame to full advantage. And then he apologetically offered the other family assistance. (Which lead to a second funny, when the other family’s godparents followed halfway back to our baby before realizing “No, I have to go back to my own family.”)

All in all it was a pretty ceremony, and the Fridge was a sweet, sweet little baby, obliging and cooperative and, like his brother, unfazed by the water over his head.

Afterwards was a lunch buffet that made me wish Nocturne had been free to join me. I talked to various cousins, and also to some folks I hadn’t seen for a long time. Which was interesting for a minute or two but then increasingly awkward as they helpfully mentioned that they didn’t recognize me with my hair going and the grey coming in. Or that their son still has lots of hair. (Yeah, but I have a job, lady)