an anecdote

My nephew was baptized Sunday, and the kids were amazing in church - the ceremony lasted for over an hour, and they didn't make me wish I had never had kids :D

I really want to share an anecdote with you, though :D Towards the end of the sermon, everybody who wanted was invited to join the communion. A quite long queue formed along the aisle, and as the priest got on with his duty, Adrian whispered loudly to me "Mom! He gives out biscuits and juice! Does it cost anything?" "No, " I answered him with a chuckel. "Would you like to try?" He couldn't wait, and set off taking his younger cousin with him. "Where are they going?" My mother asked, with a high pitch tone in her voice. "Oh, they wanted to join in and taste the free food they are giving out here" I answered, finding it quite amusing.

Well, that was that :D My mother, truly in a shocked and annoyed state of mind, more or less ordered me to get the two kids back before doing an act of blasphemy. In order to avoid any unwanted trouble later on ;) , I called the kids back to their seats. Adrian was quite irritated, and asked med why he couldn't try the biscuit, since "all" the others ate them. "We were just told that they are out of biscuits," I told him - with a straight face (lying in church must be a not so good thing, I guess,but it was the best I came up with) But anyway, he settled with that, and I fell into a silent discussion with my mother. I noticed with half an eye that the communion was going towards the end, and that the pianist and the woman who had sung got in line to receive their communion, when my son cried out with great annoyment: "MOM!!! YOU WERE WRONG! THEY HAVE MORE BISQUITS AFTER ALL!!!" Needless to say, we got a bit of attention :D

I found the whole scene quite amusing, but my mother found it very stressful. I can't really see what the blasphemy should be. A curious kid who wants to join in is not blasphemy to me. Neither that I would let him get his curiosity silenced is to me blasphemy. If that was an act of blasphemy, then the whole baptism was an act of blasphemy - neither the parents, nor the godparents, carried out the ceremony because of a strong feeling of faith. And we stood in church and promised to teach the baby about Jesus. Now, what is blasphemy, then? The baptism or the curiosity of a kid? You tell me!

Just checking in :D

I just had to add this picture of my beloved Julia :D It was taken at the "hoppeloppeland" which translated in English will be something like "the land of the jumping flees", and in spite of her sincere look, it was truly a fun experience for her. She's at the trampoline in this picture, experiencing how it is to walk on a bouncing surface :D

Tomorrow is the baptizing of my nephew, Nicolas, of 5 months. It will be a fun thing to do, and being one of the godparents adds an extra edge to it :D Let me put in a couple of pictures of him as well, having an important conversation with uncle Sam :

I have had so much to do lately, both at the cantina and at the university. And I am in the middle of writing a huge and for me very important application. It makes me nervous and anxious at the same time, but so much of our future plans are connected to the result of this application that I must write it and write it good :D I won't say anything more about what I am talking about yet, just cross your fingers for me :D

Adrian celebrated carnival at the kindergarten Thursday, and wanted - of course - go as a dinosaur - preferably the Tyrannosaurus Rex. We looked everywhere, not able to find anything resembling a Rex the slightest, and having too little time to try and make something myself, he ended up wearing a spider man suit he had gotten for his birthday. The carnival was supposed to have the theme "carnival of the animals" and I assured him that since spider man was half man half spider, it was a perfectly legitimate costume. Halfway on our way to the kindergarten, I jumped out of the car to go to the cantina. When Sam returned from delivering him, he just laughed. "Adrian didn't even want to go out of the car", he said. "And when I finally got him with me, he didn't want me to leave, just stood there as if he was lost somewhere and couldn't find his way home. I asked him what the matter was,and he mumbled something I didn't understand at all. He had to repeat it 5 times before I got some meaning out of it at all, and he was on the edge of breaking down in tears at this time. What he tried to tell me was that I "had to tell someone that Spider man is half man and half spider". Who? I asked, "just anyone" he answered, quite annoyed."

Sam then got hold of a cow walking by (or a kid dressed out as a cow, but that goes without saying :D), and told him that Spider man is half man and half spider. "I know that!" the cow answered, and ran of. At that point Sam felt his mission had been carried out and wanted to leave. A couple of tearful eyes stopped him, -because kids don't count, he had to tell a grown up :D Sam then asked a mother delivering her spider-daughter if she knew the intriguing fact that Spider man actually is half man half spider. Of course she knew, but this was the wrong kind of grown-up to tell. I don't know where Sam had put his brain that morning - Adrian wanted him to tell one of the grown-ups WORKING in the kindergarten that Spider man is half man half spider, because it was supposed to be a carnival of the animals, and then they had to know that Adrian was dressed as - yes you got it - an animal! In the end, Sam realized this, and went and told one of the women working there, and Adrian the spider-boy - who was just a spider at this special occasion - ran off with a happy smile :D

I had to laugh when Sam told me, but I felt somewhat guilty as well :D I had agreed with Adrian before we went that if nobody understood the ambiguity of Spider man themselves, then I would tell them. I left the car half-way to the kindergarten, and he had probably been in distress ever since - because he had not talked about this with his father :D But luckily everything ended in a happy way :D