fairy godmother

Despite my rant about in-laws, I do love them both. Despite their madness.

We recently added another friend to the family. A lovely single mom I teach with--who has already helped me in countless ways--agreed to sponsor the little one at her baptism last weekend. My friend was thrilled to be asked, though she thinks "sponsor" sounds a little too much like AA and prefers the old-fashioned "godmother."

We hadn't decided whether or not to do a baptism at all until a recent burst of curiosity led us to start attending a church regularly. My gut instinct, which is terrible when it comes to things like whether someone is lying or what the gender of my own baby will be but is completely reliable in matters of spontaneous decision-making, tells me that we should give L the opportunity to reject religion or to follow it. Better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it? Ok, so I just turned theology into a boyscout quote; I know I'm not among the preterite elect. (Tangent: what a stupid idea is that--that heaven has a "maximum capacity" limit?)

Anyway, we asked two close friends of ours up in Minnesota to be L's godparents in spirit, if not in ceremony. I don't expect anyone to be granting wishes or whisking her off to fancy balls in pumpkin coaches, and I'm a bit uncomfortable about the idea of anyone pledging to continually proselytize to her throughout her life. But I do think it's good to recognize people our age (rather than grandparents) who care deeply for L as though she were their own--people who could look after her interests should anything happen to us. I don't even mean these are the people who would or should or could adopt L if it came to that, just people who could tell her that she's loved and has always been loved and make sure that she'll always continue to be loved.

I wanted a Sirius Black for our little Harriet Potter.

So now L has a formal godmother, too, which seems a bit beyond redundant. Then again, why should there be a limit to how many people love our little girl? Here's to multiple godparents in an era when no family is nuclear.