Baptism?!

I've never been one to be super religious.  I have always had a inner faith in something, but other than going to general Christian type churches growing up i.e., Lutheran, Methodist and then Catholic when I was in middle school, I've never really had super strong beliefs that follow the guidelines provided by organized religions such as the above. 

Having a baby with a husband who has a very strong belief in the Catholic religion did not bother me in the slightest.  I thought you have your beliefs and I'm not saying they are wrong at all...I'm just saying they are not the only ones.  So when my husband was adamant about baptizing Madison, I had no qualms whatsoever. 

I've seen, on facebook and blogs, the big events that go into baptism of children.  Its a huge ordeal, parties, church events etc.  Fabulous!  I guess I'm just not...like that...well considering I didn't even realize my daughter was getting baptized until a few days ago anyway...

The Catholic religion is very strict, and I'm not complaining, to each their own.  However, after realizing I was pregnant and our child would need to be baptized under the Catholic church, I started researching what I would need to do in preparation.  This is when everything kind of just was pushed the wayside as I read about 6 month classes, my own baptism, confirmation, first communion etc.   It's a lot to digest...really adopting a religion as your one and only.  But that's not to say I don't want my own daughter following those beliefs.  I want her to have organized religion in her life, I believe its important in developing her morals, beliefs and just who she is going to be as a adult/human being! 

To make a long story short...my mother in law was able to find a Catholic priest who would baptize Madison even though I am not officially a practicing Catholic.  This is awfully kind and wonderful of this man because based on Catholic beliefs (correct me if I'm wrong) unbaptized babies end up in purgatory if (God forbid) anything happens to them.  And granted I'm not a practicing Catholic, I would still want my daughter at the right hand of God as I'm sure anyone would. 

My mother in law kept asking me while she was talking to the priest that this is what I wanted for Madison and that I wasn't feeling any pressure from her.  And I told her of course I did not feel pressure and I don't.  I definitely want Madison baptized.  The only hang up I'm having at the moment was a discussion I had with my parents the other day.  Honestly I'm not a stupid person at least I don't think I am.  I guess I just didn't put 2 and 2 together.  But like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have been going to Methodist/Lutheran churches since I can remember.  My father was raised Lutheran and my mother I guess was Baptist (still confused about this).  So they are technically Protestant??  Which is a direct rival to the Catholics?? I mean for me it's like apples to apples, but to some it could be apples to a square box for all I know!  I just don't want to offend anyone is all...I can't turn away from my family's beliefs, but my husband and I agreed that Maddie would be raised Catholic.  Does this mean that I have to be Catholic myself???  I'm afraid it does...

predicament...

Maddie at 3 months!!!

Actually she's 3 1/2 months now because I'm entirely too slow and entirely too busy with the day to days. 

Madison Noelle is advanced, as I like to continually say.  Yes, I am that mom! 

She is still loving her boobie milk and drinking it straight from the source and her bottles (when mommy is at work) like its going out of style.  Unfortunately for mommy, her pump broke a couple weeks ago and she has had to resort to manually pumping, but is devoted to her growing baby girl so does it without complaints! :)

Maddie is such a great little girl and loves sitting up in her support seat and watching Nick Jr. and Baby Einstein.  Her favorite toy is her Baby Einstein Ocean animal "TV" (not sure what its actually called) but it sits in her crib and plays music while the ocean floors spins around for her to see all the animals. She could stare at it for hours!

She is still sleeping with mommy in bed and only wakes up about 2-3 times a night to eat and then falls quickly back to sleep.  She sleeps about 12 hours hours at night with a long 3 hour nap during the day and small cat naps (20-30 min) every couple of hours.

Next month we will finally start trying rice cereal and see how she likes it and I'm sure time will just fly by when she starts eating and then crawling.  She still loves her tummy time and just recently rolled from her stomach to her back 2 times in a row!  :)

She has such a great little personality smiling all the time and rarely crying as long as she is not left alone for too long.  She really enjoys going for walks anywhere, like the long walk we took around the neighborhood community center on the 4th of July as well as long walks through the mall where its nice and cool with lots of different color lights for her to look at! 

At her 2 month peds appt she was in the 90th percentile for height and weight and we are eagerly awaiting her 4 month eval in a couple of weeks!