4th child: 4th baptism

As I was tucking my 5-year old into bed, he asked me if he was baptized. I said yes. Then he asked me if his brother and sister were baptized. My yes only encouraged him to keep listing extended family members. When I had to stop saying yes and move into the "I don't  know" category, he said he would talk to God about it. He ended the conversation by rolling over in bed, which was my cue to leave and be thankful he would be asking God the hard questions.

The baptism of our then 5-month old son prompted my 5-year old to ask these questions. Bracing myself for the all encompassing, "Why?" I started making a mental list of the reasons we baptized our children. He never got to that question, but here are the reasons:

1. It's tradition. The church where our baby boy was baptized was the same church my husband was baptized, where we were married, where my in-laws were married, where my husband and I received first communion and first reconciliation, where we were confirmed. Our sons wore the same baptismal singlet my husband wore.

2. It's a welcoming ceremony. It gives our children a sense of belonging, belonging to our family, belonging to the church, and belonging to our community. It gives them something mysterious and magical, kind of like Harry Potter. Not really, but it does make them believe in something bigger than themselves.

3. It's a starting point. They can believe whatever they choose, but we are the ones to give them their first lesson in beliefs.

4. It gives my babies more support. What could be better than having another set of "parents?" For that matter, who doesn't want to be a Godfather or Godmother? Add a raspy voice to Godfather, and it's a sweet movie impersonation or wings and a wand to the other for making all your dreams come true. Our siblings have all been wonderful Godparents, gangsters and fairies.

5. We celebrate. A baptism is always cause for a family party. We eat meat, potatoes, salads made with cream of mushroom soup or with mayonnaise, and big cakes. We usually entertain special guests like the priest that did the baptism or family members that flew across the country. Family members all dressed-up eating and drinking together is my favorite.

Leading up to the baptism, I was scrambling around making food better, making cakes bigger, and making my husband crazy. With this being our fourth child, it occurred to me that if this was our last baptism we better make it the best yet. With that in mind, I made three cakes, three different flavors, three different frosting flavors, and three different frosting decorations. We had prime rib, but thinking that wasn't enough we added pork loin. I put Baby's Breath on the tables as centerpieces. I asked my parents to bring their portable air conditioner to put into my in-laws garage, which is where the party was held. In my defense, I had gone a couple of weeks without air conditioning, and I wanted everywhere I went to be freezing. My parents did not indulge me.

I'd like to think that if I had made this list before we baptized our son, I wouldn't have been so focused on the extra things. Regardless of the food or the cake or the pictures, the outcome was the same. We baptized our baby boy.