Y3W: Giving him back

... to the Lord.

My baby boy has been baptized! Let me start from the beginning.

The back story

Christenings aren't normally that 'big' in my community. They are usually small celebrations attended by immediate family plus a selected few and that's that. At least I've never been invited to a big to do (a la ROHNJ part 1). Furthermore, we aren't Catholic, therefore he was baptized, not 'christened', 'dedicated', 'blessed', or 'named'. So given all this information, I wanted his baptism to be celebrated but not in a big over the top fashion. Some people will say I may delayed a little too much (because if something were to happen we want to be sure that he was given back to the Lord and therefore a child of God) but I wasn't initially aware of the time frame. Although if we ever have any more children I likely won't be waiting 6 months to have him or her baptized I did like the fact that he was an awake, alert baby and he is able to sit on his own. This means nothing in the grand scheme of things but it sure did look great for pictures.

The significance

Once we began to discuss when he would be baptized, I looked into my own infant baptism. Since my baby and I are 5 days apart I wanted to know when my parents decided to baptized me as a general guideline. In my research i discovered i was baptized on April 1, 1984. Well, as fate would have it April 1,2012 was on a Sunday!! So I HAD to have this date. I initially thought it would pose a problem because 4/1/12 is also palm Sunday- but my Pastor gave the go ahead and so it was set: my little guy and I would share the same baptism anniversary!

The celebration

Like I mentioned, I wanted to celebrate this day. It marks and important milestone in his religious journey. I just didn't want it to be another episode of 'the Real house wives of NJ' (part 2). I wanted a private space at a restaurant, good food, family, friends, and lots of love. My intention was do a really nice dessert table to go along with this really good food- but it just seemed like nothing would fall into place the way I had envisioned. The restaurant that I chose was minutes from the church and a very easy drive. We have been there on more than one occasion and I knew they had a nice private space. When I went to go reserve the space- the manager told me that I needed a minimum of 30 people to reserve it. Well I wanted to cap the festivities at 25. I could have found 5 more people to join us but that would defeat the purpose of 'small celebration' plus 5 more people wasn't a part of my budget.  Then my best friend told me should wouldn't be attending because she had to work. Then 2 more of our guests told me they wouldn't be able to make it either. Crap! this put me below the original 25 people on my guest list. Yes, I know you should always take into account those who can't make it but at one point all these people were a confirmed yes which is why I even got the idea to hold lunch after the ceremony.

In true 'From Mrs to Mom' fashion I waited til the last second to order the cake and get the baby's outfit. I also slowly began to realize that I wasn't going to have enough time to put together my dessert table display and 'why don't they make Christening outfits in sized bigger than 6 months?!" I always hate that I wait until the last minute to do things but then I never take steps to get things done earlier. *sigh*

The end result

Everything was amazing! I can't believe how everything came together. Everything didn't go according to how I envisioned it but it was exactly the way it needed to be.

On Friday before the baptism I took a half day off work and one of my good friends accompanied me to run a bunch of errands to get ready. We stopped by the restaurant and because the manager didn't book any private parties for that day- he gave us the private room for less than the minimum required amount of people. Plus he modified the menu to my liking (now I know why I like this place). After going to 3 stores we finally hit the jackpot at the 4th store in getting his outfit. They didn't have any booties in his size so he did without them. I realize my little guy is a a little bit big for his age but it is beyond me why all the Christening outfits in my area stop at 6 months and then jump up to first communion sizes. Well I should say all the reasonably priced outfits stop at 6 months. There are a few specialty store in our area that we could have gotten him a $70 suit that he will likely never wear again. We also made stops to pick up decorations for the restaurant (which I forgot at home) and did some damage at Target and Babies R Us.

That night when I tried the outfit on him it was too small :( I ended up running back to the same store at a different mall and they had the next biggest size. I thank God for her (my friend) because she was a GOD send that day. I know she reads this and I can't thank you enough. She agreed to be my son's God mother and I am ecstatic she accepted. I am even more ecstatic that she's expecting her own bundle of joy this September!!! I don't know if I was a year early or she was a year late, lol, but more on this later.


On Sunday morning my Pastor texted me to say that the baby's name was spelled wrong in the program. Although it wasn't just spelled wrong it was the wrong name altogether! I have no idea how this happened because she wrote down the correct spelling of his name when we met for the baptism meeting. She did print extra copies of the program with his correct name for us as a keepsake- but I'm keeping both. It was actually pretty funny because my husband's best friend was NERVOUS that HE had gotten the baby's name wrong. Anywhoo after the fiasco after fiasco that had been occurring I didn't mind one bit. I still think it's kind of funny. We were surrounded by so much love it was AMAZING! I was a little disappointed that my best friends plus a few others couldn't make it but the people who were there were amazing. It still bring tears to my eyes... yea I'm emotional like that.

That afternoon at lunch-we had the best time ever. Even the baby enjoyed himself. We ate, we laughed, we talked, ate some more, laughed some more and truly enjoyed each others company. My son had so much fun he was letting out some gut busting laughs! If I knew how to edit videos I would post it for you. Every time I watch it I can't help but smile. I think a child's laughter is one of the best sounds ever. And this day was one of the best ever.

enjoying lunch