Weekend Story: Baby NJ’s Christening + Pippo’s 8th Birthday in Heaven

After ten years, I’ve finally gone back to writing weekend stories again. Hopefully, I could do this regularly na. If not, ibig sabihin, na-busy or nagprocrastinate na naman si Mommy Edel, hahaha. Anyway, ours was a long weekend as we took a leave from work yesterday to have some down time and celebrate our little angel Pippo’s 8th birthday in heaven. Gosh, it’s been eight years already! So dapat pala may second grader na ako ngayon, waaaah.

On Saturday, baby NJ was baptized at the National Shrine of St. Michael and the Archangels in San Miguel, Manila. It’s one of the two churches (the other one is the National Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus) located within the Malacañang complex. It’s also the church where the hubby and I got married and where Pippo’s cremation niche can be found. So, the baptism rites started at 10AM and took only several minutes to finish. Per church protocol under the “new normal,” only the baby, the parents, and a pair of godparents are allowed to attend the ceremony.

our little family

Because my sister Jodie is one of the godmothers, we decided that she go with us along with my brother Dan who is one of the godfathers naman. My brother wasn’t able to make it, though, because he had a short-notice online class in his graduate studies that he couldn’t afford to miss.

baby NJ with Tita Ninang

And since we were already at the church, we also visited Pippo’s grave and said a prayer. The hubby and I got a bit emotional because it was the first time we got to introduce Pippo to baby NJ as her angel brother. Although she’s still too tiny to speak her mind, I could sense that she felt a sort of connection with Pippo at that moment and that she were happy to finally meet him. I remember we also dropped by Pippo’s grave on our way home from the hospital when I had just given birth to baby NJ. But we didn’t get off the car that time so this particular visit was different and more real, if you know what I mean.

family photo (with our little angel Pippo)

As we’re still on quarantine mode, the christening turned out to be a private family affair. No invited guests. No party. I just had food delivered to our house and shared a fancy lunch with family. I also had a unicorn-themed cake made by our friendly baker neighbor.

the cake

our simple lunch feast

with my extended family

with my in-laws

Of course, we informed all the godparents and the other people dear to us (e.g. relatives, friends, officemates, etc.) ahead of time that there would be no gathering and that we would make bawi na lang on baby NJ’s first birthday. Hopefully, it’s okay to party next year already. Hay, this pandemic has really changed the way people celebrate special occasions and unless vaccines will be available soon, we cannot do anything but follow health protocols for our own safety na rin.

Our Sunday was restful. Like we just slept and tinkered with our phones all day. Baby NJ played and slept most of the day, too. We were grateful to have spent our entire day with our rainbow baby. She’s getting more makulit and malikot every day!

For Pippo’s 8th birthday in heaven yesterday, we just said more prayers and had our fave fastfood delivered for dinner.

Enjoy the rest of the week, friends! 🙂

May you choose happiness always,