Family matters...

We've just taken the Maternal Parental Units off a plane from Canada and put them on one to France where they are currently touring around in a Peugeot being very European and visiting family and old friends. This is because, despite Agincourt, most sensible English people of my parents' generation have buggered off to live in France where good wine is cheap, the food is fantastic and their pensions can buy twice as much.

Since the Frog's Parental Units are also in France (being genuinely French as opposed to migratory Brits), this continental confluence of grandparents can mean only one thing... yes, a room full of grandparents.

Those of you with children and two sets of parents may know what is in store for us, however due to the continental drifters on both sides of Charlie's ancestry we have never had both sets of parents together in the same room as our little spud. My mind has been boggling in and out dizzyingly trying to imagine this.

Further, for the benefit of one of these sets of chirpy septuagenarians (it's called Poetic License, Dad) we have decided to add to the stress excitement of this situation by committing a Christening at the same time. Now, religious implications aside, Christenings are more complex than I had thought at first go. Firstly, there's all the preparation, meeting and greeting of priests and oganisation of churches, choosing of catechisms and the rest, agreeing choices with the million other parents also having their child christened in that church on that day, flying godparents in from outer space and agreeing the lunch menu with a tribe of French foodies. Secondly, there's the creation of the glistering white outfit for my little cherub to wear on his big day and that, of course, is the biggest part of the stress excitement for me given that I rashly decided to make this outfit myself and bought fabric for that very reason.

Why I thought that this was something I could do I have no idea, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Particularly, I add, as it prevented said grey heads from purchasing an outfit over which we would have no control and which, given the pictures we've recently seen of our own christenings, would have involved yards of lace and perhaps even some tulle which Charlie would have had a wonderful time pulling apart during the ceremony.

As it is, I am having kittens worrying about how to keep him quiet for the length of the ceremony and imagining scenario after scenario of him squirming out of the Padre's arms and crashing to the 11th century stone floor, or squirming around in his arms and grabbing his glasses and sending them crashing to the 11th century stone floor or any one of a number of other pictures I have in my head involving a white linen trouser suit and various bodily fluids erupting from one end or another into the font/down the Padre's cassock/onto the 11th century stone floor. Well, it's easier to worry about the event itself than it is to actually make the outfit.

However, combining the Christening and the prospect of four days discussing whose body parts are currently growing in my son's body while translating between three people who don't speak each other's language and a fourth who speaks pieces of so many languages that if you ask him a question in French he's liable to answer it in a medly of Russian and Spanish is making the prospect of sewing a trouser suit seem like an easy option. Do I win for longest sentence?