Newstocks

Unchristened

One of the things that we were planning to do while my parents were in Bermuda was have Aidan christened. We booked St. Peter’s church in St. George’s several months ago, and arranged to get together with the rector, the Reverend David Raths, the week before to discuss the details. But when we finally met him, things didn’t quite go to plan.

My main reason for wanting to meet was to discuss what my role in the ceremony would be. Mandy doesn’t believe in the Christian God, but she does believe in some kind of divine spirit. Because of that, and because she felt it was still “the done thing”, she wanted Aidan to be baptised. As an agnostic/atheist unwilling to promise to bring Aidan up as a Christian, however, I wanted to explore whether it would be possible to use an alternative form of words. I was hoping for something that would allow me to be involved in the service, but not compromise my beliefs.

When we met Rev. Raths, however, it was immediately apparent that the format of the ceremony was not up for discussion. As Mandy and I started to explain our religious beliefs (or lack of them), Rev. Raths listened with what seemed to me to be mounting horror. He seemed like a nice, quietly-spoken man, so when I had to look him in the eye and tell him I was an atheist I almost felt guilty, like I had insulted him personally. I told him that if I might be able to consider speaking the words in the ceremony and meaning them in a metaphorical sense, but that I couldn’t mean them literally. However, Rev. Raths was clearly unhappy with that.

I explained that I had no intention of bringing Aidan up to be a Christian exclusively and would be exposing him to all faiths and encouraging him to make up his own mind about them. I see nothing noble in promising to bring my child up according to the teachings of one particular faith. To me, that’s just indoctrination. Growing up in Bermuda, Aidan is already going to be exposed to enough of that. What I did want to know, however, was whether Aidan could get himself christened later in his life, if he chose to do so. Rev. Raths confirmed that he could.

Mandy did an excellent job explaining why she wanted a christening despite not being a Christian, and Rev. Raths was sympathetic. However, he stressed that a baptism was a very serious thing, “not just a photo opportunity”. Although he said he would perform the ceremony if we still wanted him to, it was clear that he would prefer not to.

Before we met Rev. Raths, Mandy had thought that he would welcome the opportunity to christen Aidan, despite our lack of faith, for Aidan’s sake. But during our chat it became clear that that was not how he felt at all. To him, a christening was about the parents pledging to bring the child up as a Christian, and if we knew in advance that we weren’t going to honour that pledge, he didn’t understand why we would want to make it. So in the end, we didn't.

More and more parents seem to be making a similar decision these days. Some of our friends who have babies have also decided not to have them christened, so Aidan will certainly not be unusual in this regard. And the more stories like this that I read, the more certain I am that we did absolutely the right thing.

Meeting grandma and granddad

A couple of weeks ago, Aidan met his grandma and granddad – my parents – for the first time.

We’ve been doing video calls over Skype since Aidan was born, but this was their first face-to-face meeting. Needless to say, my folks were very excited about finally getting to know him. They had considered flying over shortly after he was born, but decided against it to give Mandy and me time to get used to our new arrival.

I think it was a good call. At six months old, babies are much more interesting than they are for the first few months after they’re born. They smile, they react and they’re just starting to learn to move around under their own steam. Indeed, for most of the three weeks they were here, my parents hardly left St. George’s, being content to spend as much time with Aidan as possible. Having someone else around to entertain Aidan was nice for Mandy and myself too.

Naturally, my parents took a ton of photos of Aidan while they were here, the best of which I’ve added to the Aidan set on flickr.

Locomotion

Aidan is now almost seven months old, but he still can’t crawl. As he hasn’t really done any new tricks for a couple of months now, I’m getting impatient. I was rather expecting him to be writing dissertations on sub-atomic physics by now.

He is getting awfully close, however (to crawling, that is; I think the disserations will have to wait for a couple more months). He can now sit unsupported, which I understand is a necessary precursor, although he can’t get into a sitting position himself and has to kind of fall over to get back onto his hands and knees. He’ll occasionally do a bunny-hop, or even move one knee forward, but he hasn’t yet figured out that he needs to move his hands as well. When he tries, he usually just collapses in a heap with a frustrated cry.

Frankly, however, he seems more inclined to skip the crawling and go straight to walking (and apparently some babies do). He much prefers standing up to any other position and his legs are strong enough to take his own weight (although they can be a bit wobbly at times). As a result, I’ve started walking him around the house while hanging on to his arms. He’s taken to it like a duck to water, happily plonking one foot in front of the other as I call out, “Left! Right! Left! Right!” like some demented drill sergeant.

I’ve also started teaching him to cruise. The coffee table in our living room is the perfect height for him, and I’ve been encouraging him to stand while hanging on to it. Admittedly, he still hasn’t quite grasped what he’s supposed to do with his arms, preferring to use them to bang excitedly on the table instead of holding on. Hopefully he’ll figure this out before he whacks his chin on the table edge when his legs go out from under him.

Teething

In the last few weeks, Aidan’s teeth have started coming through. The consequences:

1. More fussing. We’ve got some stuff for his gums that seems to alleviate the discomfort for a while, but putting it on can be hazardous, because of…

2. More biting. Biting down on things seems to make Aidan’s gums feel better, whether they be soft toys or daddy’s fingers. Ouch. What's more, he bites like a lion devouring a gazelle, putting the object in his mouth, biting down on it, then pulling it out while his jaws are still clamped shut. No vegetarian tendencies here.

3. More drooling. Aidan has always been a bit of a dribbler, but it’s now reached Niagara Falls-proportions. Within minutes of putting him in a long-sleeved outfit, his cuffs are usually wringing wet.

All in all, though, the little guy's handling it well.

Just no-one mention the word dentist.

Ha bloody ha

“Babe!” said my wife excitedly, as she came into the room this morning. “My period’s a week late”.

I stared at her.

“But… how is that possible?” I stammered. As far as I could recall, she hadn’t forgotten to take her pill in the last month.

A week late. That seemed like a lot, but I was sure she had been that late once before. Hadn’t she?

I fought back the panic. Perhaps two kids wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. And anyway, even though I was far from certain that I wanted more than one, I had never really expected to win that argument, had I? This was inevitable. It had just come a bit sooner than I was expecting.

“April fool!” grinned Mandy.

Oh, God damn it...