Tristan gets baptized at l'église Saint-Antoine de Padoue

From the moment Tristan was born or maybe even while I was still pregnant with him, Jean-Louis' mother (my mother-in-law), had wanted to get him baptized. She is Catholic and everyone in the family has been baptized so she needed Tristan to be as well. We went along with it to please her.

Jean-Louis was raised Catholic and I was raised Buddhist but neither of us practice religion at all. We know how his mom is like and if we objected at all, we would be in trouble! However, we did make it clear that we wouldn't be raising him Catholic and that we're only doing this for her and Jean-Louis' late grandmother, who passed away last year.

The event took place at l'église Saint-Antoine de Padoue in Toulon. There were two babies being baptized at the same time. The other was a little girl named Stella. Normally, parents get their children baptized when they are around 6 months old but they had to make an exception for us since we lived out of the country far away. 18 months old? Maybe a bit strange but no problem :)

The ceremony took about an hour to complete. I did not even try to listen and understand what they were saying or singing since I was focused on keeping Tristan quiet and happy. There were lots of church choir singing and passage readings. The priest applied oil on Tristan's forehead at one point but the climax of the event was when water was poured on Tristan's head. That was the only thing I expected to see. They did the baby girl first since they thought Tristan would be more difficult. The baby girl was sleeping at the time but then cried anyways. Tristan was remarkably quiet and didn't even whine. He just had a confused look on his face like what the heck is going on? We walked around the church and read more passages and listened to the priest. Then we all signed papers. After that we all walked outside the church.

Everyone was so surprised and pleased with how well-behaved Tristan was during the whole ceremony, including myself. The event took place when he was suppose to have lunch and it ended around the time he should have been napping. Once it ended and we were outside the church, we gave him his milk right away. Moments later in the car ride back home, he passed out. Poor little guy :(

Later that afternoon, we all reunited at Jean-Louis' grandfather's place and had dessert and champagne. With many of us dressed up and wearing white, the ceremony at the church, and then the champagne, it really did feel like a wedding. I would call the day a success and I hope my mother-in-law agrees with me too :)