Baptism, Wearing the White While Acting Naughty

 

There will come a day when these boys will be all shades of horrified over their baptism outfits.  Lucky for me, they had absolutely no problem with them on their big day.  I never would have made them wear the hats, but Tobias even slept with his hat the night before.  They both loved the bow ties!

I haven't yet mentioned that all my little kids were pretty horrible in the court room on adoption day, horrible like "should we really be entrusting these parents with all these kids?" type of horrible.  My kids are very rarely horrible, but they choose their moments very carefully and prefer there to be lots of witnesses, especially social workers.  

Because of their collective naughtiness the day before, I had a good talk with them about my expectations before we stood as a family in front of the church for the boys' baptisms.  I even used bribery.  I promised that we would go out for pancakes after the ceremony if they behaved nicely during the baptisms.  Well, I was truly embarrassed once again, this time in front of our congregation.  Soren and Cassia were great, probably because they wanted the pancake reward.  Zade?  Eek!  He was sent straight to bed when we got home.  Tobias?  Bed for him, too.  Edison?  Snore time, buddy.  Jon took the four older kids to get pancakes while the others went to bed.  (FYI, I did feed them before we went to the evening service so no one was sent to bed with empty tummies.)  

Without a doubt, the stress pattern of Soren and Tobias leads to naughtiness, the likes that is really never seen in our normal day-to-day lives.  They are good kids at home, but I have sworn never to take them to doctor appointments or hair cuts or shopping together.  They get wild and silly and just do not listen.  At all.  It is exhausting.  I have heard enough and read enough reports that I know this was the only way they acted for their first mom.  I am thankful that I get their respect most of the time, but I'm going to really have to think through ways of getting that same respect when we are out and about.  

The baptisms were still beautiful.  I pray that we will be worthy parents of these boys, and I am thankful that we have God to lean on and a congregation and family behind us on our journey as parents.  We have years of instability and worse to overcome, but I am so glad we were the ones chosen to heal along with them.  It really does still seem so strange that finalization is complete and that these are my sons.