call me kleenex

martina was born on june 20, 2006.

the famous (well, famous to ME) juancho now has an adorable little sister who we call by a whole gamut of nicknames, including but not limited to:

- martini (we can see a promising alcoholic future for this baby);
- marteens;
- teeny tiny (well she USED TO BE. she has filled out a bit. all i can say is: breast milk rocks); and my personal favorite ...
- TONGKITOOTIE (i vary it a bit. she looks like a tongksitootitonks sometimes)

so second child, right? you'd think the parents would've been more prepared for this one. in fairness, my sister hasn't forgotten most of her maternal duties after 4 years. but then the baptism came along.

it was going well i thought. all the parents and godparents were at the front of the chapel, near the fountain, where they were supposed to be. i was just peacefully craning my neck from one of the back pews to check out what was going on. then i saw my sister gesturing for me to take pictures. i found out later on that they had a camera but the battery was dead.

fine.

i brought my camera to the front of the altar and started taking a million shots of the same scene. then i noticed my sister gesturing again (at least she was decent enough not to shout at her daughter's baptism) that juancho, who was beside me the whole time, had a runny nose. it wasn't quite noticeable because he was holding a paper-plate face mask of some sort that he made earlier. however, as the only thing i had was my camera (i left everything with my parents, who were somewhere in the back pews), i realized that we had a slight problem. we did not have tissue.

at first it was manageable. juancho just noisily sniffed throughout the first part of the ceremony. suddenly, without warning, ...

he SNEEZED.

if you have not handled a 4-year-old with colds before, let me illustrate (and if you are squeamish in any way, skip to the next blog entry, if there is one). as a result of his nasal explosion, his cute little face became covered in bubbly, whitish phlegm that was starting to drip down his chin. as i did not want anyone to see this and traumatize my beloved by running away from the child, i used the mask (with apologies to the mask) to scrape off the respiratory fluid from the face. i was tempted to use the huge tablecloth (do you even call it that?) that was covering the altar, but being struck down by lightning did not appeal to me at that particular time. i was also contemplating using my dress, but that would have attracted too much attention. so anyway ... damage control: check.

but he sneezed again.

AND THE PRIEST WAS ABOUT TO POUR HOLY WATER ON MARTINA.

and i had the CAMERA.

with my brain working at top speed, i wiped juancho's face with my left hand and ran with juancho (who was still holding the highly infectious mask), the camera and the handful of grossness to the pew where my parents were. "mama, tissue!!! and don't touch that mask!"

after 2 seconds of pseudo-cleansing my hand, i ran back to the altar and was able to take pics with my clean right hand. i made it just in time.

at this point, it would be anticlimactic to mention that my sister forgot to bring candles as well.