Day 213

Balancing act

The grasshoppers have grown quite large since spring, when they were just little tiny things.  Now they leap out ahead of footsteps quite substantially.

Today whizzed by, like the last few have done.  Firstly with a christening in a Roman Catholic church, where I have never been before.  Four little babies and one little girl in a combined christening. 

A few slightly older children were gazing into the main church through the windows of what was called "The Ladies' Chapel" in our old Anglican church, the place where new mothers go with their crying babies so that they don't disturb the rest of the congregation. 

One of the party sitting behind me whispered in my ear, "That's where they keep the older siblings who are completely uninterested in the very existence of the younger child, who would rather they were not there at all, actually!"  This sibling rivalry which begins at the birth of the second child, this deposition of the king, the one and only.  Such a shocking occurrence for the elder child.  I remember hearing the story of my older sister who tried to kill her baby brother, (my older brother) by stabbing him with a knitting needle! 

One little girl was so sweet, so loud and funny, joyously running through the pews, that she was eventually removed there too, where she proceeded to amuse me with her silent antics through the glass.   Funny faces, and hopping up and down, and loud sounds which could be heard even through the mostly sound-proof windows.

The baby we had come to see was the best-behaved, the most avid and curious of all the babies, staring up at the lights on the ceiling above, gazing at the stained-glass windows, which were modern and nothing like the ancient ones. 

I think it is a lovely tradition, to name a child in public, bring them into the fold, so to speak, they are now part of the community to which their parents belong.  

I have raised all my children with a strict moral code, but none of them was ever christened.  I have a big problem with the patriarchal nature of most religions.

And then a mad rush to buy the necessary supplies for a barbecue (alcohol and meat) and on up Route 128 to our lovely full house, where the girls and their boyfriends had done a wonderful job at cleaning up, and where a few minutes later, everyone arrived and a lot of eating and drinking took place for a few hours, and Emma and Jess both fell in love with their friend's little boy, who charmed everyone, and at the end of the evening gave us all hugs and kisses in the magnanimous way of small children, which warms adult hearts and makes us remember our own little ones, or being little, or just the very dear sweetness of the innocent.