While we were all sleeping, my family arrived early in the morning after driving through the night. I awoke a little earlier than usual so that I could make my son and I breakfast before the families came over to visit. My sister’s in-laws come over first to squeeze in some solitary baby time before my mom, sisters, and brother took over the baby holding (my dad waited patiently for “his turn” as did my sister’s father-in-law). My sister and I left the merriment for a few minutes to figure out what she would wear to the baptism with her postpartum body (she looked much better than I did at five weeks postpartum!). Once we figured our her outfit she took a quick shower so that I could do her hair and that is when our parents, sisters, and one of our brothers showed up. I finished styling my sister’s hair; she went to visit with our family while I did my own hair, makeup, and wardrobe. I chose to wear a black maternity dress and high heels (I also brought along a pair of ballet flats to give my back a break). My little sister (the second youngest) offered to dress my son in his suit. After my family enjoyed a late breakfast, they also changed for the baptism. Then we all crammed into three vehicles and made our way to the church. The baptism was a nice intimate ceremony with just family and a few close friends. My husband and I were chosen to be the baby’s Godparents. My dad stood in as proxy for my husband who could not get time off of work to come. The baptism only took twenty minutes. Afterwards, my sister and her husband treated everyone to ice cream. Then the families headed back to the church for mass. After mass, half of our group went to run errands while the other half went back to the apartment to get dinner started (unfortunately we did not have the key to the apartment so we had to wait anyway). I helped my mom get dinner going and then I found a corner out of the way to make the cream cheese frosting for the red velvet cupcakes and frost them for our baptism celebration meal. Dinner was lovely and the cupcakes were decadent. After dinner I got all of our things together and backed our car for our long journey back home. The visit went far too fast!
