St. John the Baptist

Now, for what you've all been waiting for, our very own John Francis as St. John the Baptist! After Mass today our parish held its All Saints Day party in the gymnasium. There were a dozen kid games, all with the name of a saint worked into them. Our Catholic Boy Scout troop held a spaghetti feed. At least 30 children were there all dressed as saints in homemade outfits. It reminded me of a simpler time of Halloween (not that this was Halloween exactly) when moms actually made outfits or the kids fashioned their own outfits out of what they could find in the attic--none of this silliness of spending too much money on cheap pre-fabricated costumes which thousands of other kids will be wearing too. (In my case, my dad sewed the bear costume I wore on Halloween for years. :)

I am not an excellent seamstress or much of a crafty person, but I took it upon myself to make our boy a St. John the Baptist costume. Here are two samples:

To the untrained eye, our John might look like a caveman, but the catechized Catholic will recognize the Precursor of Jesus immediately! First, Chris taped a video (sorry, it's flipped sideways) of me trying to get a very tired baby to cooperate for a photo.

John would not cooperate standing by himself, so I held him for some still shots:

All the children walked across the stage, one at a time, and were interviewed: they were to tell their real name, their saint name, and some facts about their saint. It was absolutely precious and you can imagine the nervous silence of the two- and three-year-olds! (But nobody broke down in tears.) As this involved walking across a stage and speaking into a microphone, Chris did the honors for me.

As Chris pointed out to me, it was a perfect opportunity to tape video of our baby's first time on stage, but I flubbed up and took only still photos.

Ohhh... on an unrelated point... it appears that John is breaking through another tooth, this one on the top left. Counting these two new break throughs, John now has three teeth on the bottom and three on the top.