Faux Parenting

Meet Finley. She was born in January, and is a pretty mellow little girl. Her parents, our friends Amy & Zach,  asked Jeremy and I to be her godparents. Or, in our case, her "faux parents." She's got plenty of people to take her to church, so our duties are squarely in the cultural and social realm. Introducing her to different kinds of music, art and food; travel and nature, that sort of thing. 

Part of our duty was to be present at her baptism. It'd been years since I'd been to an event like this - the water, the crying, the strange formality. This time, the pastor (a kind of self-proclaimed hipster) let the family kids splash around in the baptism water while he recited some words. It was pretty amusing, and surely angered some of the more conservative, blue-haired members of the congregation.

I held the tiny bundle of babyhood as he splashed cool water on her head (and right into her eye). She slept through the nearly whole thing - hopefully an indication of levelheadedness, which will serve her well in life. 

Our baptism gift for her was a mix CD (don't worry, we checked all the lyrics). We thought reggae, some punk and a good dose of love was a good contribution. Welcome, Finley, into our messy, strange and interesting world. Can't wait until we can hang out!

More photos here, if you're interested.