Baptismal Birthday

Lacy Gayle turned eight.
It came without much warning, sneaking up on me right after Christmas. Lacy’s life seems to be flying past me too quickly. Her first few months, ironically, seemed to last a lifetime. Her seven hour screaming fits made each minute feel like a lifetime… I never thought as a new mother, never really thought, that Lacy would grow up and become such a separate person from me.
I need more time.
I keep telling her, but she just laughs and laughs. She laughs almost as much as she used to scream, actually.
Her little giggles are so contagious. I despise the clock, knowing her giggles will soon grow up and away from me. My battle against time is waged on the home font, on my insides. I’m working hard on enjoying what’s in front of me, my present.
I worked to be present on Lacy’s birthday, but boy. It was hard. Seeing her in a beautiful white dress reminded me all at once of her blessing day as an infant and the potential she has to wear white as a young woman… And it was super special and super crappy.
Lacy, you must stop growing.
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Planning her baptism reminded me at how unpolished my planning skills are.
I once had a teacher say to me, “poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”
Haunting little ditty.
I wrote out Lacy’s program, designed it (it took me hours, but it’s the simplest thing), and promptly forgot to ask the names on it if they’d be willing to do the jobs printed neatly next to them.
Thank goodness they were all available and willing.
My computer crashed after I designed the program. Of course it did.
Days before, I’d gone to order a birthday dress for Lacy. On etsy, I found a beautiful jersey 3/4 length sleeve, heavy on the twirl. It was chic, classy, not a typical dress but timeless. It would look at home at a baptism and an afternoon picnic.
“Lacy, look…”
“Yeah, it’s nice.” Lacy shrugged. Shrugging is never a positive thing.
“Not what you’re looking for?” I asked.
“Well, I just thought more decoration on top… And like poof on bottom.”
Amazon.com delivered a thirty dollar dress to us two days before her baptism. Two days.
Two.
This is also about the time I texted out invites to important people I’d forgotten to invite earlier *head slap*
Who lets me plan things, anyway?
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Lacy and I pulled together an hour after her dress was picked up from the post office and we whipped up a quick photo shoot in enough time for me to edit the pictures and order a few for the table display outside the door.
I don’t tend to fuss too much over perfection or planning, so we just plunked her down in her home element… On my bed, outside by the barn. I let her use an old Book of Mormon with my great grandmother’s handwriting in it.
She insisted on her CTR ring showing as frequently as was possible:image
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Of course my camera died, so I used my phone. There wasn’t enough time to charge my camera before the good sunsetty light would be gone. So we made do.
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I auto enhanced the photos as bet I could, downloaded them to my iPad from my online back up storage space, and the ordered prints through wal-mart.com and almost broke my iPad through it all.  I don’t really get along well with touch screens.
Danny and I had bought fixings for a potato bar earlier in the week, but I needed some ice cream and a few extra items.  We made a dash to the store to pick up the pictures, the ice cream, the cake mix… and then we raced home in enough time to speed clean before family arrived.
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(what pink potty in the middle of the living room? I don’t see anything…)
The double running stroller was effectively stashed in my room… along with the clothes, the boxes, the shoes, the “Mom, where do we put this?”s…
“On my bed, baby. Just put it on my bed.”
(I slept on the futon that night. I regret nothing.)

We made the cake at 9:30 pm that night.
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“I want mix mix mix, Lace. I want.”
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I woke up early on Sunday and rolled out my last-minute magic… the same magic I whipped out in high school and college the night before a big project was due.
I wrapped potatoes in foil and started crying.
When did Lacy turn EIGHT?
I did not sign up for THIS.

A song came to mind, and the tears flowed, flowed, flowed and I knew it had to be played at her baptism. And hey! It could be! Because (surprise!) I hadn’t squared away the intermission time between Lacy’s baptism and her confirmation yet.
I found the video, Danny watched it and our friend took care of the downloading and projecting. It was perfect, and I’m so grateful.

As I baked potatoes, Lacy took a bath and then decorated her cake.
“I want a little 8 in every corner, a BIG 8 in the middle and some CTRs around… and like ALL of my CTR rings like stuck in the cake!”
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“And now sprinkles…”
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“It’s a little messy in the middle, Mom,” she sighed. It looked perfect to me. She loves to take the reigns on stuff like this, and I love letting her because hey! more time for me to get stuff done.

I had actually invited guests to a potato bar luncheon at my grandmother’s house without asking my grandmother first. She said yes when I did finally ask, though, because she’s pretty saintly. That morning, I made a list of toppings and pulled out my serving bowls. I said a prayer over what I’d bought -that it would be enough, and if it wasn’t that it would miraculously multiply not unlike loaves of bread and fishes.
Then I dried Lacy’s hair and put it up in rollers while Danny made a special birthday breakfast: bacon, eggs, grits, and orange juice.
“Mom, um, you’re not leaving those in Lacy’s hair, right? Because she looks like an alien…”
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“They’re the new cool thing, Trent. Of COURSE I’m leaving them in.”
“If they’re so cool, why aren’t YOU wearing them, Mom? They’re hurting my head.”
They think they’re so smart.

Once her curlers were out, she got in her dress and slipped into the shoes Sue Ann gave her. Sue Ann used to be Lacy’s Primary Teacher, and is always so thoughtful about Lacy’s important days. These shoes were the highlight of Lacy’s outfit.
“These are the ONES, Mom,” she said, “The ones I tried to show you at Wal-Mart but you were all, ‘Lace, come on… let’s GO’ but now here they are! It’s magic!”
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She slipped her pretty dress on, and my goodness… she glowed beautifully which means I just cried more. We’re a family of feelers.
“Pretty twirl!” Alice cried out, “Oh… Lace. A Pretty Twirl. Want it?” Pretty twirls, as you might have now guessed, are pretty dresses. Luckily I had one of Lacy’s old dresses hanging in the closet (see there IS GOOD that comes from not keeping up on clothing rotation. Sometimes there is):
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Trent didn’t want to take a picture in a pretty twirl. Probably because he assumed it meant getting alien hair and sparkling shoes, and he’s just rather NOT. We went off to church… Lacy with her new dress, new scriptures and a bright smile.

Danny and I skipped out on church early to set up the luncheon. We meant to take Alice with us, but we forgot. My aunt Julie brought Lacy and Trent to the luncheon, and pretty soon Danny’s phone rang. It was my brother who serves in the Bishopric. He just wanted to know if we planned on picking Alice up from nursery?
*head slap*
My Aunt Ruth and Uncle Gary brought her, and for the 58th time that day, I said, “It takes a village…”

We ended up having enough food -JUST enough, and then we went to set up for the baptism.

I didn’t plan out a table display perfectly, but figured I’d keep my options open, you know, until five minutes before the baptism would start. It worked out pretty well…
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I brought a doily my great-grandmother crocheted… I like to think she saw it.
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I put it next to the book I worked for HOURS to make for Lacy. It came in the mail in time (three days before the baptism). Chairs were set up, Lacy’s hair was braided, prelude music was played, and Lacy maintained a steady glow through it all:
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Her Dad and I worked hard to not make eye contact because we all fuel each other’s FEELER tears.
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Before her baptism, as her PaPa talked to her about baptism, he cried and she almost cried. As I helped her out of the baptism font, out of wet clothes and back into her Pretty Twirl, she confessed she’d almost cried before her Dad put her under the water.
“But I pushed it down,” she shivered. As she dressed she muttered, “All washed away…” It was so sweet -SHE is so sweet.
When the Bishop asked her how she felt after her baptism, she grinned, “Better.”
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Better.
What a wonderful, simple one-word sum-up of how we all feel when the Savior’s Atoning Sacrifice is applied to our lives.

Lacy’s baptism was such a wonderful experience. There was so much love, so much family -the Spirit was very strong. Seeing my sweet 8 year old (WAH) feel the Spirit touched me. I remember having the giggles at my baptism, but Lacy has a better grasp of the step she took on Sunday.
It was truly special to see her get baptized in the same font I was.

I watched her stay up late and journal her feelings in several of the journals she was generously given.
“I am now a member of my Savior’s church,” she wrote.

One journal asked specific questions.
“What did your parents do to prepare for your baptism?” it prompted.
“Set up chairs,” she wrote.

Someday, Lacy… someday far away I’ll show you this blog post and we’ll laugh together about how Mom isn’t the best planner, organizer or anything but how it doesn’t matter.
Because what happened is what needed to happen.
And we all feel better.

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