St. Bartholomew's Feast Day

Yesterday was St. Bartholomew's Feast Day, and also N's baptismal day. We always celebrate the kids' baptismal days with a small celebration. The big highlight for them is that they are allowed to choose a cake to have with dinner.

N was very excited to choose his cake, and spent quite a bit of time agonizing over his choices at the store bakery. He was insistent that the cake be kept a surprise, and that nobody except him & me could see it before dinner. He finally chose a 1/2 sheet carrot cake. I had the bakers write "St. Bartholomew's Day" on the top of the cake.

My parents and sister joined us for dinner last night, and when I put out the cake, I asked N -- "So, why did you get to choose this cake today?" And he answered "Because it's my baptismal day! This is the day I first became Catholic." And then I asked "So, why did we have 'St. Bartholomew's Day' written on it?" And he answered just as clear as day "Because I was baptized on his feast day. AND because Bartholomew is the other name for N!"

I was so proud of him for remembering all that and stating it clearly at the dinner table. The rest of my family doesn't practice their faith and it was a joy to see my son be a witness to our faith.

When I was pregnant with N, my mom suggested many names -- few of which DH & I considered. One of the names she did suggest, however, was Bartholomew, so I like to tell her that she had a hand in naming N. He actually wasn't named until after he was born -- we had 3 or 4 different names we were considering and it wasn't until we met him that we knew what his name was. This was unlike C or L, who were named well before birth.

(I don't write out my children's names to avoid google searches on their specific names together. But, if you know who Philip hung around with in John's gospel, then you know N's name!)