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I went out to Missouri this past weekend for the baptism of my twin nephews. I am now Sam’s godfather. I doubt I’ll ever really be called upon to give him much active spiritual guidance, but if I am, we’d all better get started praying for him now.

Alex (my singleton nephew, age 1.33 years) has developed a lot since Christmas. It took him a while to warm up to me, but I’m told it was partly due to his cold. Letting him play with my cell phone was a real icebreaker.

We also went to see the house I grew up in, which is now for sale and had a timely open-house showing. Well, the “grew up in” part isn’t quite true, because (a) I’m not sure how grown up I am even now, and (b) I was even less grown up at age 16 when we moved out of it. But we lived there for about ten years, which is twice as long as any other residence I’ve had so far. It looks pretty different now, but it felt so familiar, not at all like someone else’s house, in spite of all their stuff being in there. Some rooms seemed a lot smaller than I remember, others actually seemed bigger. The walkthrough sparked an odd assortment of memories, including some total surprises. Like the first time I was busted for swearing. Or playing wiffleball in the backyard. Or singing with my sister on our makeshift stage (the downstairs fireplace hearth). I’m really glad I got the chance to go through and remember these things.