The Sound of Silence, and Baptism Follies

So the girls flew home today, and the house is awfully quiet.

I miss the girls, but I must say I am enjoying the stillness now.

That, and the fact that I'll actually have TOWELS again for my bathroom. I know I was 17 at one point, but I don't recall needing 6 towels a day for showers.

But, on with the pictures!


Here we have Morgan with Matthias - she was trying to get used to holding him before she had to do it at the baptism. It took Matthias a while to warm up to her; because she was so nervous when holding him, he could feel it and he would fuss. Once she got more confident, he enjoyed it much more.


Here Hubby is busy watching the baby. As you can see, he's applying himself diligently to his task.

Matthias has begun to scoot himself across the bed quite admirably.

When he was put down on the bed, he was where his bottle is in the picture. Over the course of being in the bed, he has managed to scoot himself right next to Hubby.

He does this to me at night too. I'll wake up to him right next to me, when he was originally 2 feet away from me.



Here's me with Matthias. As you can see, he's REALLY grown quickly. By the end of the week it won't surprise me if he's hit 17 pounds. He's not at ALL fat - he's just going to be a big boy.

His pacifiers are the 4+ months now, because he doesn't like the ones for newborns anymore.

He certainly isn't shy about letting you know if he doesn't want something, lemme tell you!




Like I was saying...

If he doesn't want to do something, he's not at ALL afraid of letting the entire room know that he doesn't want it.

Here he didn't want to be held in front of Aage, Hubby's Grandfather.

His face got red enough to clash with his outfit!





This is Glostrup Kirke, where we had the baptism held at.

The church's homepage is: http://www.glostrupsogn.dk/GlostrupPjece.htm

Not that any of you can read the Danish, but I'll give high points about it:

The original church structure was built in the early 1200's, and has been renovated a number of times. It has a bell tower with two bells; the oldest is from 1558 and the other from 1708, although it was recast in 1848.

The priest requested that no one take photos during the actual baptism service, so we waited until after to snap a few.

Here's the baptismal font - it's made of sandstone and dates back to the 13th century. The ewer and bowl are tin, from about 1750.

Actually that's not an ewer really - it's a german beer stein.

Go figure.

Morgan handled holding the baby for the baptism remarkably well. Originally the priest was very concerned about having Morgan give the responses to the baptism, since she doesn't speak Danish and all. I pointed out that the total of her responses will be "YES" and "Matthias Aage Peter Tock" and those shouldn't be all that difficult, really.

As it turns out, he shouldn't have worried about Morgan at all. He should have worried about the Danish guy at the first baptism (they traditionally baptise 2 babies, one right after the other).

When the priest asked if the godfather would be willing to guard the child against all evils, teach the child the way of the righteous and how to be a good Christian, he said, "NO".

The priest looked up from his book and said, "WHAT?"

The man said, "NO" again.

Apparently he wasn't really paying attention to what the priest asked - or he'd not actually READ through the service and just counted answers in the Bible. You're only supposed to answer, "NO" if the priest asks you if the child has been baptised at home.

So after everyone up at the font nudged him, he said "Oh, oops YES", and the baptism continued.

Morgan handled it beautifully - she said the baby's name clearly and answered YES when she was supposed to. She even held the baby confidently enough over the font that he didn't complain about it.

The water was apparently cold, however and when the first handful ran over Matthias's head, he spit out his binky in shock.

Where did it land, do you ask?

Right in the baptismal font. So the binky is now baptised, too. The priest had to fish it out and put it back in Matthias's mouth.

Here we are outside the church (happily, I might add - that church has NO air conditioning and it had to have been over 90 degrees inside. Poor Hubby was sweating bullets in his dress shirt.)

Me, I had Matthias gnawing and drooling down my left arm to keep me cool.

The largest of the baptism gowns my Mother sent out with the girls from NH fit the baby. The other two were just too small (or he's just too damn big).

She's not sure which side of the family they're from, but they're all handmade and absolutely gorgeous. The traditional baptism outfit here in Denmark reminds me of a satin sailor's suit and I'm frankly glad we could loan one that's been in the family for so long.


Poor Hubby sweating inside - we had to do an emergency diaper change in the back.

Unfortunately for the priest, he didn't have any other trashcans available other than the one under his desk.

I hope he empties his trash daily.







Here's us at the baptismal font.

Yeah, I need a haircut, BADLY. I've been procrastinating about it though - hopefully I'll get one done at some point this month, or I'll go nuts with my hair in my eyes.