Mia's Naming Day

NamingCeremony0097, originally uploaded by Lisa Durbin.

On Sunday, the sun shone (for one day only) for Mia's naming ceremony. It was performed by the same celebrant at the same hotel as Jack's naming ceremony, but we changed the ceremony a bit to make it more unique.

This time, Paul and I did readings. Paul read this piece:

"Auguries of Innocence" by Francis Thompson and William Blake

Know you what it is to be a child?
It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism;
it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief;
it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear;
it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has a fairy god-mother in his/her own soul;
it is to live in a nutshell and count yourself the king/queen of infinite space;
it is:
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

and I read this piece:

"A Wish For My Children" by Evangeline Paterson

On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees. May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors. May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving

Yep, we both cried our way through these. Our friends Gary and Caroline (who are not a couple) promised to be Mia's supporting adults (that's like Godparents to you non-heathens), and the grandparents made promises about caring for and raising Mia.

It was an absolutely beautiful day for our beautiful little girl. Damn, I'm still weepy.

Photos can be seen here.