Bo's Baptism

This past weekend Bo turned 8 and was baptized. My mom and J's parents came up for the festivities, and it was a wonderful, whirlwind weekend. Bo really wanted to get baptized on his birthday, and it was a little bit of fancy footwork to make it happen, but we did. By the way, in our church, kids get baptized when they are 8. I didn't really think about that until my dentist said something about having my hands full with 3 kids and a newborn and I couldn't figure out why he assumed I had a newborn. I said, "Are you calling me fat?"

No I didn't.

Bo had one friend over to play on the Saturday before his birthday. I think his friend had four bowls of ice cream. At one point I found him on the porch with the carton of ice cream and a spoon. I'm glad he felt comfortable... He is a really good kid, actually. His obsession with strawberry ice cream was a little surprising.

So, I'm not sure if I can document it properly, but it really made me laugh when it happened, so I want to try. Bo's friend Isaac brought a card, in lieu of a present. Bo eyed that card from the moment Isaac got there, dying to open it up and see what wonders it held for him. Well, my mom also gave Bo a card, but he had eyes only for Isaac's card, and didn't notice Grandma's card. When he was opening presents, he eagerly grabbed the big white envelope he'd been eying all afternoon. He opened it up and read, "Today is your birthday, you are an amazing and delightful GRANDSON." J and I smiled proudly at his reading skills, Grandma smiled proudly at the perfect card she'd selected, Avee snatched at the money that was slipping from the card, Danyo was shaking presents trying to entice Bo to move past the boring cards faster.... Bo looked pointedly at Isaac, furrowed his brow and said, "What on earth?" Isaac immediately knew Bo's mistake, while the rest of us were still figuring it out. Isaac was laughing, shaking his head, and waving his hands defensively, "That's not from ME!"

I wish I could have gotten Bo's expression on camera, it was priceless. It was like all of his wonderful memories of awesome Isaac flashed through his head and he was going to have to let them go, because an 8 year that calls another 8 year old "Grandson" is just too crazy.

We had Bo's baptism immediately after church, which is not how it's usually done, but in order for it to be on his birthday, that was our only option. I felt like it was very gracious of the people who stayed, to stay. Our church is 3 hours long already. That's a LONG day of being holy, and whatnot. Anyway, we kept saying to Bo, "look at all these people who love and care about you, isn't this awesome?" I miss the days when I got to put the spin on his reality. He responded every time with, "It's because they were already here!" This cracked me up because, well, mostly he was right. :) We have good friends who would have been there no matter what, but he wasn't going to let me call it anything different than it was.

My mom gave a talk and she did an awesome job. At one point she pulled out "treasures" from a bag to make the point about what matters in this life (or rather, what we take with us when we die. Her message was much more eloquent than my synopsis there) She pulled a little cream colored vase with gold trimming out and set it up. She said it was very expensive, and very important. She pulled out a little silver spoon with engraving on it and said she'd had it forever, her initials were on it, etc. I sat there looking at those two things and just couldn't believe my mom had them! I thought, "wow, I never took my mom for a fine china kind of collector---and how have I never seen that little spoon---that's amazing!" I thought of all the twists and turns her life has taken--the moves, the losses, the 9 kids who kept her from ever having anything nice...

And there were other people in the audience who'd never met her that knew this stuff was fake. Alls* I have to say is---that woman is good! She even got me! One of my friend's husband saw her put the vase up on a precarious edge of the podium and got terribly nervous about it falling off. He and I were the two ding-dongs that practically missed the point of her message, getting caught up in the "treasures".

When we got home, as we were all piling out of the car, Bo remarked, "I don't feel any different." I kind of laughed, but my mother-in-law laughed heartily. Perhaps we didn't entirely prepare Bo for the afterward part. Where, you don't really feel much more than wet.

That night was the night the tornadoes ripped through the midwest, tearing up Joplin Missouri. There was something akin to a tornado that came through our town---we had a warning, so a tornado was spotted, but whatever hit here, was mild enough. Monday morning I saw a lot of wind damage up north, by the kids' school, so it was significant enough, but I don't know that it was ever called a tornado.

We went down in the basement and the kids and the grandparents took turns reading from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. J's mom laughs hysterically at every other page, so it was entirely enjoyable for the kids to read with her. J was being a grouch about having to come to the basement, and I was getting weather updates from my friend in Utah. We don't have tv, so aside from checking the path of the storm on the internet, I didn't know what was going on in Iowa.

It was a late night and a wonderful weekend with the grandparents. We are glad to have Bo in our family. Neither of us can believe he's already 8, but I guess that's just how it goes!