Babies on parade.

Tonight I had every intention of folding laundry while watching Vanity Fair. I woke up this morning and my first thought was, "Yay, I can come home tonight and watch Vanity Fair while folding the laundry!" (It is truly sad when one's very first thought of the day involves laundry.) But you know what's coming - I didn't actually do either of these things. Work got in the way. So I came home, watered our newly planted window boxes and weeded front gardens (yes, photos will come soon!), went to the gym, and then sat in front of this computer for a couple of hours working on a project. I'm now calling it quits with the project for tonight, and since it's too late for a movie I am trying to sneak in a blog post (because this is something else I've been meaning to do for a long time).

What's on my mind tonight? A whole lot of things. Lots and lots of things. The sunburn I have on my right leg, the cat who is acting disturbingly strange these days and who is going to the vet on Saturday morning just in case, the appointment I have tomorrow with my homeopathic doctor, the projects I have over the next six months at work, the oven of a bedroom that awaits me tonight, the varicose vein on my left leg that sometimes itches, the book I'm reading about New Orleans and my desire to go back to that city... There's a lot on my mind. But I should post about something for which I have pictures, because blog posts need pictures.

So in that case, here's a recap of what Doug and I did a couple of weekends ago. Actually, on Father's Day. We attended the baptism of my cousin Amy and her husband Mike's baby boy, Sean. Talk about a good baby! I've seen all of my nieces, nephew, and cousin's children baptized and not one of them was as good as Sean. I did not hear a peep out of him the whole time. He even smiled while I was holding him! (I confess that Doug was on the other end of the camera making his high-pitched sounds and funny faces that babies seem to adore, but still, even after Doug moved Sean still was a happy baby - and note the bib he's wearing here!)

Sean was baptized at a congregational church, and they did something at the baptism that I've never seen before - they paraded the newly baptized babies around the church to "meet" the congregation. Here's Sean on parade: At first I was skeptical of this - just pour the water on the baby, renounce Satan, and be done with it - but this was a little twist, something a little more sociable and engaging than the traditional Catholic christening that I'm used to, and by the end of the laps around the church I was pretty into the whole thing. The older people waved at the baby, some people grabbed onto his foot and congratulated him as he moved by... it just seemed to be a nice way to meet people. This cold-hearted, otherwise-cynical person may have had her mind opened just a little bit that morning, and it wasn't the church band that did it, either.

There's so much for my mind to get used to these days, because it's been opened to soccer, too. This World Cup fever has hit even me. It's hard not to get excited when watching soccer. It's really the only sport that I can stomach on TV (because the games are only 90 minutes! And plus it's fun to watch all the players fall down and be dramatic. I swear, there's not a more dramatic sport than soccer.), and it reminds me so much of the Olympics. My current favorite is Spain, now that the U.S., England, Germany, Australia, and South Africa are on their way home. And in honor of the World Cup I made special cupcakes for Sean's baptism. Can you tell what they are? I asked my mother what she thought they were and she said, "A Nintendo DS?" Okay, that one threw me a little, but my niece, Maddy, guessed right away that they were supposed to be soccer balls. I'll have to get a little better at the decorating next time, but the good thing to know is that these cupcakes, baked lovingly from scratch, mind you, tasted delicious even if they were barely recognizable (a Nintendo DS? Really?).