Religion may make you sick

We went to meet with the pastor yesterday at the Methodist church to talk about Meg's baptism. We're very occasional churchgoers, but it seems that baptism is one of those things that you need to do for your kids. We had a 5:30 p.m. appointment at St. Stephen's so all four of us went. Meg had been a bit fussy in the afternoon. She needed a nap, but had trouble settling down so she was a little cranky when we got there.

As we sat down, the pastor was going over the vows of baptism, basically saying that as adults bringing a child for baptism, we needed to commit to bringing out kids to church. I gave my excuses and he was kind about it, and then explained that with kids, there is almost always a good reason not to do it and if you keep up with that, that suddenly the children are grown and you realize you never took them to church. He gave the message without a real lecture, which I was afraid of.

During the discussion, I'd been giving Meg a bottle. She kept complaining when I tried to take it away and with the awkwardness in the room, I didn't force her to stop and burp like I might have at home. Bad idea. After she finished her bottle, she let out a really loud burp. And then proceeded to upchuck the entire bottle all over me, the chair and the floor. Charming. We then felt even more awkward about the whole thing and while the pastor was gracious, his personality isn't one to make a joke and relieve the tension or anything. After that, I had to sit through another 15 minutes of discussion with spit up all over my shirt and hair. And they say motherhood isn't glamorous.

In other news, there was an earthquake with an epicenter in Annandale, Virginia, yesterday, which is a few miles from here. How random is that? I totally felt it, too. I was home with Andy asleep and Meg on my bed when I heard a boom and the house shook. It freaked me out. It felt like something had exploded in the basement because it was definitely the whole house shaking for a second and it wasn't just on one side. I looked outside to see if they were doing any work on the streets and didn't see anything. The kids didn't notice, but the cats were a little freaked out.