I'm not extremely vocal about my faith. I don't push my views on people nor do I judge those with faiths different from mine. I was baptized Catholic and grew up in a Catholic home. I hardly remember my first communion but I do remember going to church (and hating it) every Sunday. I didn't attend Sunday school or go to Catholic school and I have very few Catholic friends. I grew up saying my prayers every night and continue to do so. I had a young adult version of the bible growing up and I read that cover to cover quite a few times. My mom insists on having an alter in her home and probably judges me for not having one in my home. I light a candle anytime something major is going on in my life and ask my family members to do the same for me. While I had a religious upbringing, it wasn't overly strict and didn't consume my childhood. But it still left its mark.
Sure, I'm Catholic, but there are a few things that I deviate from. First of all, Matt and I didn't get married in a church. I have no problem with gay marriage, everyone deserves love and joy, what matters to me is that you're a GOOD person, I could care less about your sexual preference. Finally, I'm sorry, but I don't think I need to talk to a priest to talk to God. I talk to God regularly and I know he listens. Despite this, it was still extremely important to me that my boys get baptized. Do I believe that children and people who aren't baptized won't be accepted into heaven? I really don't know, but my boys were getting baptized regardless. At first I thought I was doing it for my mom, I knew it would be important to her. But then as I sat in on baptism class and thought about it more, I realized that it was actually for me and was somewhat surprised at just how important my faith really was to me. I guess my mom's method of not shoving religion down our throats while we were growing up but just making sure it was a part of our growing up worked.
So a while back, I registered Matt and I at the local Catholic church, took a class on baptism, and registered my boys to get baptized. We asked my friends Trudi and Armaan to be Jellybean's Godparents and Jessica and Matt's friend Brian (although I don't think Matt ever actually talked to him about it...) to be Tater Tot's. In the Catholic church though, the Godparents need to be, of course, Catholic. So, my boys have two sets of Godparents (ummm... I think I have 30 or something so two sets isn't really out of the ordinary). Anyway, they have our friends and then my sister and my cousin as the Catholic members. My sister and cousin had to get their churches to send letters to my church to "prove" they were indeed practicing church goers. It was a bit of work on their end, but I'm grateful they were willing to do it for my little boys.
I asked my sister to go to our favorite church in Portland and grab some rosaries. She also got birthstone guardian angels and had it all blessed by the priest. While I would have loved to get them baptized at home with our families, this little bit of home is a good second. I got the boys' outfits from Nordstrom and their shoes from Amazon. I failed to get JB shoes that fit so he rocked bright blue Nikes in his white baptism outfit. Fail! Oh well. We went to mass, which fortunately had a cry room for JB to run around in, Tater Tot was great and slept the whole time. After mass, our family and another family with a little boy, proceeded with the Baptism. I'm so glad we were able to do this for our boys. I don't feel "better" or a weight being lifted off my shoulders or anything like that but I can't exactly describe how I feel about getting the boys baptized without using those terms. It just feels right and I'm so very glad we did it. Again.....my surprisingly faith creeps up on me when I least expect it.
After church, we grabbed some Dominoes and settled in for a long day of football! Our teams lost....which would have made for an unfortunate Sunday, but I think bringing our boys into the Christian world makes up for it tenfold.
Next up, first communion classes, but that won't be until several years from now.
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| Rosaries from my mom and sisters. |
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| Tater Tot's outfit. |
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| Jellybean's outfit. |
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| Trying to eat his rosary. :/ |
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| I love these two so much. It was a pain keeping JB from rocking in the rocking chair while his brother was on there with him. |
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| He loves having his baby brother in his lap. He gets a little rough with him sometimes though so I'm always so anxious when I pose them for pictures like this. |
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| Heading off to church! A family that prays togethers stays together right...? |
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| My boys look like twins. |
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| Toddlers at church....that's about right. And check out those shoes... |
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