For those of you who are also my facebook friends, this post is not anything new. I just do not want to forget this story and this is where I keep track of my stories. Since the other day I went to Home Depot and forgot my wallet, only to find it sitting on the front passenger seat of my car in plain sight in a not so great part of town, I am afraid I will also forget this gem of a story.
When Parker was in the NICU, he was baptised by the Priest On Call (POC). He was a nice man, but I had never met him before and have not seen him since. The day Parker was baptised was the first time I got to hold him- 5 days after he was born and 2 days before his surgery.
After the baptism, the POC gave me the washcloth he used to wipe P's head, a vial of the Holy Water he used and a certificate of the Baptism.
Josh and I are not overly religious people. We believe in God and we believe in raising our children (loosely) according to our religious backgrounds.
Babies born with Parker's condition are usually in surgery for about 2 to 3 hours and have an average hospital stay of 40+ days.
Parker was in surgery for about an hour and was out of the hospital within 15 days. I'm not sure about the direct link between the baptism and the quick recovery. He had a lot of people from different walks of life praying for him and thinking about him at that time.
This past weekend we finally got our acts together (read: my parents came down and offered their services because my frequent freak out calls were getting old) and finished up P1's room and put together essential elements of P2's room. Included in this endeavor was switching the dressers.
In the process, I took all of P1's clothes out of his "baby" dresser and put them on the floor. Pman took it upon himself to sort them. He informed me that a shirt he got for his birthday last year was no longer wearable because it's a "baby shirt". The shirt fits, mind you.
He also found the vial of Holy Water. I took it from him and tilted it gently this way and that watching the water bubble move up and down the tiny pinkish, plastic vial.
I held it in my hand and thought a bit about that day. Then I put the vial back down.
When I picked it back up, moments later, to place it back in the sock drawer, where all Holy Water should be kept, there was no more water in it. I looked on the carpet where he was to see if there was a water spot. Nope.
"Parker, did you spill the water out of this?"
"No.-- I drinked it."
"You drank the water that was in here?"
"Yes. I's fursty."
Perhaps the ingestion of HW will improve his grammar.
