Baby Blessings

Today the alarm went off at 5:00. This was the worst thing that could have happened. I could hear the rain outside the bedroom door, it was Sunday, and it felt like perfect sleep in weather.
After hitting the snooze button a couple of times, I realized that it was a losing battle and I needed to get going. Kathy was already up and getting ready when I went in to turn on the shower. We woke up Jake and Tim, loaded them in the car and started towards St George. Today was the day that Doug and Mary blessed baby Grace. As we drove to St George everyone was asleep except for me. The sun came up but it was too cloudy to see the sunrise. By the time we hit the gorge Kathy was awake, and Jake was stirring in the back seat. He woke up and asked "did I fall asleep?"
We pulled into St. George on time and found the church. Dan and Karen were already there in the parking lot with Tracee. The rain had stopped and people were starting to file into the church. We found our seats up front that Doug and Mary had saved. Mary's family was already seated, Doug and Mary were on the front row with baby Grace and you could see they were probably ready to get going with the blessing.
I sometimes have a hard time remembering that Doug is a grown up. When the Tebbs first moved to Las Vegas I noticed how cute their daughter was, and Doug was the perfect bait to get to know her. I worked part time that year in a T-shirt store and made up a shirt that said "Tough Uncle Douglas" (this was his nickname from the family). I don't know that I really needed to give Doug this shirt, but it gave me a perfect excuse to go by the house to see Kathy, and with any luck it would get me an invite into the house. (I was only partially successful with this plan, and I'm sure that Kathy was confused why I was buying her 4 year old brother clothes.)
Doug was an outdoor kid that never really seemed to fit into the whole Las Vegas environment. He would go to the wash and catch crawdads, play in the desert around the house, and was always kind of a dustball from being outdoors all the time. As Doug got older he started to spend more time at the Ranch in Panguitch. Some summers he hardly came home, and would hang out at the cabin with Jenny and the cousins.
When Doug graduated from high school I thought I would hook him up with a really good job cleaning pools, this lasted less than a week and before he realized that cleaning pools in Las Vegas was probably not what he wanted to do and he left to go to Panguitch.
When Doug got into roping, life at the ranch changed for my kids. It was not possible for them to walk without having a rope thrown around there feet, followed by a tug that would pull them to the ground. If they ran, they got roped, if they stood still they got roped, if they were eating lunch (you guessed it, they were roped to the chair.)
Doug went on a mission, came home, continued to throw ropes at my kids, went to school, roped, worked at Bryce Canyon, roped. It seemed like roping was the only thing that Doug liked, and it was all he thought about. We always teased him that he liked cows more than girls, and seemed to have better luck with them. It looked as if Doug was destined to a life as a ropin bachelor that would travel from city to city, spending all of his money on ropings but only talking about the ones that he actually won at.
Then came Mary. Doug changed. Life changed. Doug still roped, but now he had someone that would go with him and watch him. When Doug started putting on ropings, he quit throwing ropes at my kids and started using them to help with the events. My boys enjoyed working with him, and they really liked the pay at the end of the day. They would come home exhausted, with an appreciation of what it is like to put in a hard days work. When I heard that Doug and Mary were going to have a baby it was a little hard to believe, because I still have this image of the dusty Tough Uncle Douglas in the back of my mind. Peter pan was the boy that never grew up, and this was the image that I had of Doug.
Today as Doug held baby Grace and gave her a name and a blessing, it was a perfect day. Grace was so calm and just looked wide eyed at the two Grandpas, a couple uncles, a few of the priesthood members from the ward, and her Dad. The prayer was sincere, and heart felt. After the blessing, the proud Dad held up his baby for everyone to see and cradled her as he sat back down. After the Sacrament Meeting was over, Doug and Mary stood by the door with baby Grace, as friends and family congratulated them on the events of the day. Observing from a distance, it was easy to see that Doug is all grown up. He became a husband, and is now a father. It is apparent that his priorities have changed, and the most important thing in his life now, and forever is a little girl that has him wrapped around her tiny little finger. Mary is a proud Mother, and it is hard to imagine them not ever being a family. I still have to wonder though...., when Grace starts to walk, will she have to worry about getting roped.