A Family Celebration - Sofia's Christening Day

Our granddaughter Sofia Hannah May Caitlin Rotte was Christened on Saturday in St. Carthage's Church in Lismore and we had a lovely day. Even though she and her parents Shayne and Jany live in Cork they had her Baptised in our local Parish church here, and she wore the Centenary-plus Christening Robe that's become a family heirloom. It's been around for over 100 years and my late mother was Christened in it, so was I, as were our four children - two in Africa and two in Ireland - and it is lovely to see the next generation getting to wear it.


It's fine cotton and bordered with lots of broderie anglaise, with tuck pleats sewn into the bodice and it is very long. It is quite delicate and fragile now, with a few small worn patches that I am afraid to touch as far as repairing it goes, so I hope it will be okay after each use. So far so good! Her Aunt Maeve and Uncle William were her Godparents, a first for both of them and it is a great
honour for them.


It is also amazing that it fits the older babies of this generation as in my day babies were Baptised in the first week, to get them past the Limbo post in the days when the Catholic church held firm to such cruel beliefs. At least my understanding is that Limbo has gone the way of the dinosaurs in Catholic theology which can't be a bad thing, although my knowledge of doctrinal issues would be fairly flimsy. It was done away with a while back, which makes the whole premise a bit shaky if you can drop dogma when it suddenly doesn't suit the current climate.

The day was warm and sunny, and the Christening took place at 5:00pm, which was a bit late but suited us down to the ground, as we had plenty of time to get ready after the gang arrived from Cork. I had done some baking already since I am on hols and had some unpressured time on my hands, and we prepped some salads - rice and raisins and a pasta and tuna salad, and a tossed salad, and marinated a lot of stuff for the BBQ, which was hubby's domain.

The ceremony was a traditional Catholic Baptism, done by the Parish Priest Fr. Cullinan. It is quite arcane in parts, with not alone the pouring of water at the Baptismal Font, but the lighting of the Baptismal Candle, and the covering of the baby with a white shawl. These are all symbolic of the welcoming into the church community, and are pretty timeless, and may be present in other denominations. I suppose adult baptism is common in many Evangelical churches, and it seems to involve wearing a white garment, so there are probably parallels across the Christian community.

I'm always for what unites rather than separates us so while I'm a bit of an "a la carte Catholic" myself, as are the children, it seemed important to have Sofia brought into the church, given the Sacraments like Baptism, Communion and Confirmation, and then as an adult or teenager she will have the chance to make a more informed decision about what her religion means to her.

We all feel the church is the people rather than the institution, and that helps to ameliorate the negativity surrounding the church as an institution, which hasn't had a great time in recent years - all self-inflicted with the cover-ups of abuse scandals and the arrogance of the leadership - and the good thing is that people are now no longer unquestionably accepting everything we hear from the hierarchy, who really have lost the confidence of their flock and lost any right to moral authority.

Enough philosophising - after the ceremony we went back to our house and got Sofia out of the Christening robe after the photo session in the garden, and had a lovely BBQ on the patio. It was a small gathering of family and friends - some from Lismore and some from Cork - and we were blessed with the weather that enabled us to sit out relaxing after a lovely meal until darkness fell. Sofia was fabulous all day, didn't cry except when the white shawl covered her head, and stayed happy through all the pass-the-baby cooing back at the house. She got some lovely silver gifts sets engraved with her name and the date of the event.

I made a Christening cake with white fondant icing and pink-dyed (with red food colour - perfect for pink!) butter icing for piping. I'll post the recipe but it's very simply a Victoria Sponge base with whatever you fancy for decoration. I nearly got demoralised when I looked at some cakes on the internet as the standard of the professional cakes is not something I'll attain without some serious training - I'm no Cake Boss! But everyone was duly impressed with mine so I'm happy with those accolades.

Here are some photos of the day, and I hope you enjoy sharing what was a wonderful celebration with the proud parents and grandparents.

A momentous event - the arrival of Sofia, our first grandchild!

I promised you all I would let you all know when our beautiful grandchild arrived, and post some photos as well. Well, the arrival of Sofia Hannah May Caitlin was heralded last Thursday with great fanfare and joy in our family. Jany and Shayne are over the moon as proud parents and hubby Jan and me are the most delighted grandparents - totally besotted is the only way to describe it and it marks the start of a lovely new phase in our lives.

She was born in Cork's lovely new University Maternity Hospital (CUMH)which was opened about three years ago following the amalgamation of the three maternity hospitals in Cork into one centre. The Bons Secours, the Erinville and St. Finbarr's Maternity Hospitals all closed and were reconvened under one roof in the grounds of the Cork University Hospital. Everything went well for Jany who had gone about five days over her due date and had spontaneous broken waters, which meant she would have to deliver within a time limit to prevent infection. She had to be induced and Sofia was born about ten hours after this commenced.

It was a long vigil and all the more frustrating as there were extremely strict visiting regulations where only the partner was allowed free access at all times. Only one other visitor was allowed for an hour each evening, which meant that Sofia was 22 hours old before we met! As soon as we heard the labour was imminent, I took time off work and as arranged went to Cork to offer whatever support I could, which consisted mainly of drinking coffee in the cafeteria downstairs with them until Jany's induction, and waiting in the lobby knitting and reading to while away the hours once it started.

The day she was born I was visiting a friend when Shayne rang to say Jany was making good progress, a few hours before the birth, so I was at the hospital when she was born. I saw photos within minutes when Shayne came to the lobby with the camera, and revealed the name. We knew the gender from way back, but the name was a closely guarded secret - so much so that I wasn't able to access their computer to go online when Shayne was in the hospital as the password was the baby's name and I didn't want to know in advance! After Shayne's announcement I busied myself with texting and phoning family and friends from the lobby while waiting for him, and it was nearly midnight before we got back home.

I stayed that night in Cork with Shayne, as it would have been awful to leave him in an empty house with all the euphoria and no-one to share it with. That's something most fathers can relate to and hubby said it was the most isolated feeling to be alone after the birth of our boys (especially in Africa) where all the fuss was made of mother and baby. So we enjoyed a celebratory drink (wine and beer for me and Shayne respectively!) on arriving home, while Facebook was being updated with photos and news, all eliciting huge responses which helped to connect everyone across the miles, given that they both have spent their lives together in Spain and Jany has all her family and friends in Holland to keep updated. As the proud granny I had plenty of photos to post after I saw Sofia and I will share them here now, and hope you enjoy seeing them. There are many more on Facebook for those of you who know me there - and for the rest - why not join me on that journey too!

Other family members met her yesterday when she and Jany arrived home, and she met her granddad, her Aunty Maeve and Uncle Martin - who designed her wonderfully quirky and unique birth announcement card. Her other uncle, William, had to go back to college in Limerick and will see her next weekend. It was wonderful to see how she melted everyone to putty, and this is only the beginning! I still don't feel it strange to be a granny and am enjoying it thoroughly, and hope that I can be of help to Jany in the next few days as I am staying in Cork to help get the breastfeeding established. Tomorrow the Public Health Nurse will come to do the heel prick test and the primary visit; it will be strange to be a visitor and have to back off when a colleague comes in the role that I usually occupy!

No doubt there will be frequent follow-up posts with ongoing status updates of Sofia's progress and I run the risk of becoming a total granny bore but right now I make no apology for celebrating such a momentous family event. A first grandchild only happens once in a lifetime and I hope it marks the start of a wonderful relationship with these grandparents for many many years to come! (The photos show before-and-after shots of the proud parents, and Sofia meeting the family in her first two days - and a nice shot of CUMH in winter sunshine)

High Five - You've been tagged!

Ann over at the lovely transatlantic blog Inkpots n'Quills recently tagged me for this High Five 2009 meme, so I will try to trawl memory for five good things that happened in the last year. I don't really do much with memes or chain awards - either getting them or passing them on - and while I don't rule them out completely as some bloggers do, I admit I haven't been great at passing on the few I did get. Apologies to those who tagged me and found me wanting. I don't pass on chain emails but this is different. I kinda feel guilty at passing them on to others as it imposes an obligation on them to pass them on to their friends - and then there's often a tiresome task attached. Not this one - I like the idea of picking five good things from 2009.

In no particular order - my selection includes the following highlights:

1. Election Success
Hubby Jan's first election to public office! He was elected as the Labour Party Town Councillor for Lismore in June's local election and this was a cause celebré in our family - he had already been a Councillor for 3 years since he was co-opted, but this was entirely on his own merit and reflected his success during his term both as a Council member and as town Mayor in the run-up to the elections - he has lobbied for issues that are important for the town and has tried to avoid party politics above the interest of the town and people. His achievement is all the more notable as he was one of only four foreign candidates elected to Irish office and he was on national radio on Newstalk's Global Village panel about this rare species. I wrote about his election here.


2. Grandparents-in-Waiting
The imminent arrival of our first grandchild - Jany and Shayne will become proud parents in the coming weeks and we were told in a phone call from Spain in June that we would be grandparents in 2010! This has to be the best news of the past year and we wait in trepidation for the birth sometime in February. Watch this space for live updates and photos!

3. The Homecoming
Shayne and Jany moving to live in Ireland from Spain was a great event for us as we missed him over the past eight years since he went to Spain and even though it was great to have a holiday destination every year it is lovely to have them here now and to see them grow into a real family.

4. Holidays revisited
Down memory lane - a reunion with my old friend Anne for a short break in Spain. She and her two daughters were in Barcelona for a break when we were visiting Shayne and Jany in Malgrat de Mar. We spent four days together and relived the hectic pace of the holidays of our youth in India and Nepal - seeing all the sights in Barcelona and catching up on the news of the past years - spanning decades! You can read the post about that holiday over here.

5. Leaving the Nest
Seeing the progress in our children over the year gave me a lot of pleasure and are collectively worthy of inclusion! Shayne and Jany are already mentioned. William returned from his semester of college exchange in Tennessee, and ended the year doing teaching practice in Lismore's Blackwater Community School as part of his final year of PE and Geography in Limerick; Martin got accepted on a Masters' programme in Graphic Design in Dublin, and Maeve survived her first year of Secondary school and is getting on with Second Year as cool as a breeze. She is growing fast and has already passed me out! She went on her first parent-free holiday after her Spanish trip when she went to England with her good pal to aunts and cousins of said pal, showing that we are able to cope (a bit!) with cutting the apron strings. Mind you - not without some trepidation after watching the scariest (unlikeliest I hope!) film of the year in Spain - Taken with Liam Neeson. (confession - I had written Harrison Ford and Ann pointed out it was Liam - that'll teach me to blog late at night and get my action heroes mixed up!) Worst nightmare scenario for every parent - teen daughter gets kidnapped for the white slave traffic on her first holiday sans parents with wild child pal in Paris! Still, life's not all like in the movies - thankfully - and they came home safe and well from England.

So that's my high five selection for 2009. Good cause for reflection and I could probably make a high ten if I put my mind to it!

Do I have to pass this on to friends? Ok if so I will notify the following - and hope you enjoy filling out your High Five of 2009!

1. Jeannette @ Mysteries
2.Stephanie V @ Hookin', Knittin' & Livin'
3.Susan @ Stony River: a Writing Life
4. Peggy @ Organic Growing Pains
5. Rudee @ A Knitting Nurse

I look forward to reading your highlights and if you like - pass it on to your blogfriends!