On the day I was born my father brought my 9-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister to see me in the hospital. It was not a particularly pleasant meet and greet. My brother asked if I could be taken back and swapped for a boy baby. He said he absolutely did not want another flipping sister, he was already quite fed up with the one he had. My sister stated quite clearly that she was our Daddy’s favourite and that me, blowing in here with my chubby cheeks and cutesy gurgles would not, repeat not, be stealing her crown.
I suppose the passing of 35 years has seen them arrive at some form of acceptance of me. The same can’t be said about our littlest lad. The passing of seven weeks has seen little or no acceptance of our baby girl.
He uses several methods to show his displeasure at her arrival – from giving her a welcome slap on her face to simply pretending she doesn’t exist. His new trick is to stand beside her pram while she slumbers peacefully and yelling ‘Argggghhhh Baybeee!!!’ in his best and loudest scary voice.
We held the baby’s christening at the weekend. The priest conducting the ceremony informed us beforehand that this was the first baptism he had done in this, his new parish and that he was more than a tad nervous. We sat up in the front seats of the packed chapel and threw him smiles of encouragement and thumbs up signals every so often.
There are a few reasons why we don’t sit in the front seats in chapel and those reasons are called Daniel, Caolan and Finn. At least from the back of the church it’s easier to field questions about God, religion, the universe and everything without being given the evil eye by the priest for talking during Mass.
Daniel, who turned around to whisper to those seated behind him that he finds the whole ‘God thing’ really boring and that he was missing ‘Monster Jam’ to be here, sighed dramatically and loudly throughout the ceremony. I thought it unwise to threaten him with violence in the house of God but I pulled a muscle in one of my eyelids by overenthusiastically issuing a variety of ‘wait until I get you home’ looks.
Caolan, the boy who can ask approximately one question per second and never waits for an answer, inquired from the front seat what the big deal was about God. He also wondered aloud if ‘that fella’, as in the priest, ‘ever talks about anything else except God’ and why ‘that boy’, as in Jesus, was holding his heart in his hand (as seen in the Sacred Heart picture), why said heart was glowing and how said heart could properly function when he was wearing it outside his jumper as opposed to under his skin.
As the husband tried to hush the boy he turned his line of questioning to other things. He wondered if God was friends with Santa – who is also all seeing – and if God believed in vampires. Without taking a breath he wondered why God was actually given the title ‘Almighty’, if he was in possession of laser beam eyes and also if he was as tall as Godzilla or in the same height bracket as, say, Spiderman. He also questioned why no one has ever caught sight of this God fella. If we’re honest with ourselves, people, these are the questions we’d all like answered.
He continued to interrogate the husband while I tried to free a hand to render him either unable to speak – or if that didn’t work, unconscious – and concluded loudly with a ‘we’ve been here for like, half and hour, and he has just went on and on about God, God, God the entire time.’
The littlest lad got fed up with the focus being solely on his sister and while we stood around the water font he entertained the congregation with a strange dance reminiscent of drunken Ollie Reed on the Terry Wogan show. I don’t imagine the church choir knew ‘Wild Thing’ with which to accompany his moves but I don’t think he cared much. He was determined to steal his sister’s thunder on her special day.
The rest of the service was spent physically restraining the boy from getting up and getting down, strutting around in the aisles like a mini Mick Jagger.
The green-eyed little monster has a future on the X-Factor for sure.
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