Week in My Life 2017: Saturday

I’m blogging every day this week to share a glimpse into our daily lives.

You can read Monday’s post here, Tuesday’s here, Wednesday’s here, Thursday’s here, Friday’s here, and Sunday’s here.

Saturday starts as all Saturdays do, with children who bound out of bed before their parents do—a good sign since we were at the pediatrician’s office yesterday.

Leo still isn’t feeling 100 percent, so we have a friend coming to stay with Leo while Daniel, John, and I attend our twin nephews’ baptism ceremony at the Baltimore Basilica. Daniel is already fully dressed, picking out his tie and blazer while I am still getting up.

Somehow—and the details on this are fuzzy—Leo reaches into the recliner and finds a remote control we lost a couple years ago. Our morning is made, and we haven’t even left the house.

Leo doesn’t seem disappointed to be missing the baptism. Having a fun sitter all to himself and no limits on screen time? He’s got it made. Our baptism gifts, which I ordered online on Wednesday, haven’t all arrived, so we will be going empty-handed. The babies’ parents know me well enough not to be surprised by this.

At the church, Daniel gets his first peek at his new cousins. He is excited about how little they are.

They are six weeks old, and they are really, really cute. They don’t look that much alike, but I’m still not confident that I’m guessing right who’s who.

The Basilica is gorgeous, as it always is, especially with the autumn sunlight pouring through the windows, and I give Daniel my camera so he can take photos while I capture a few with my phone.

He takes a photo of Msgr. Thomas Tewes, who is baptizing the twins, and then shows him the picture. Little do I know he is planning to take video of most of the ceremony, which he does, zooming in and out and moving rapidly from subject to subject.

The baptisms are lovely, and I stand there feeling tremendously grateful—that we have these boys in our lives, that we are surrounded by family, that John is godfather to one of the babies, that the priest is the same one who baptized my goddaughter in this same cathedral 18 months ago, that we are able to be here…so much gratitude for all of it.

One twin is wearing a christening gown first worn by his great-great-grandmother 125 years ago. The other is wearing one made by my sister Treasa and our mother. They finished it last night. Nothing like a deadline to get things done.

Afterward, we drive home to drop John off to hang out with Leo, and Daniel and I head to the party—a warm, sedate gathering of close family, godparents, and Msgr. Tewes.

Daniel eats deviled eggs, one of his favorites, and plays football with my father and the sons of two of the godparents. The babies sleep the entire time, and I tease Treasa that this whole having twins thing seems pretty easy.

Daniel and I head home for a quiet afternoon of playing, but at some point I get the sense that even though we had dinner last night, people are going to want dinner yet again tonight. And John mentions the French onion soup I made a few weeks ago. It seems just right for tonight, but we’ll need to go to the grocery store. So Daniel and I get back in the car.

We have a new method to grocery store shopping. He takes one of the tiny shopping carts for children and I assign him a task, and then we meet up to assign another task. Our strategy works well today, and we end up together in the frozen foods aisle, where Daniel fills our cart with mini chocolate chip pancakes.

In line at the cash register, the woman ahead of us in line strikes up a conversation with Daniel about pancakes, and he happily engages. They go back and forth, and as she’s leaving, she says, “Goodbye, Pancake Guy!” And she’s off. Daniel is pleased. He may not be genetically related to my dad, but they have the exact same approach to grocery store interactions—and I stand by enjoying every moment.

The French onion soup is as good as we remembered, and Leo shares what he has learned from the book his godfather sent him a few weeks ago, Mistakes That Worked. Then the boys run off to build a base they protect with weapons they built out of Trios. Leo is feeling much better, and they are disagreeing and playing together the way brothers do.

They’re dragging their feet on going to bed, but even good days have to come to an end. So we read and chat and pray, and then I turn out the lights.

“We are going to be talking,” Daniel tells me. “I am making up Phineas and Ferb stories tonight.”

And so I leave them chattering away in their beds. When I go back to check on them in a bit, Leo is asleep but Daniel gives me a big smile and a kiss. And soon enough he’s fast asleep, too.