The Best of Intentions

Well, during Advent, we had this little cardboard manger that Zooey and I made, and a bag full of strips of straw-colored tissue paper. And pretty much every night, we'd think about personal sacrifices that each of us had made and wrote them on paper strips to put in the manger for a "nice soft bed for Baby Jesus." Zooey really got into this...well, most days. He still had his typical 4-year-old boy days.

So Christmas morning, I was up before the others, and I fetched one of Edyn's baby dolls, swaddled it and laid it in the manger, then perched it on the fireplace hearth for the children to find when they got up.

Zooey slept in, what with the late family gathering on Christmas Eve. But Edyn (18 months next week) was up pretty close to her regular time. BOY, was she upset when she saw her dolly all tied up like that! She ran to the fireplace and rescued her "baby," ripping off the swaddling cloth much faster than it took me to put it on. And no amount of reasoning would lead her to let me swaddle up the baby again, just so Zooey could see it. In fact, it took a good half hour before she'd let me lay the baby in the manger again, sans swaddles. And then she only let it sit there for 30 seconds before she rescued it again. Just couldn't stand to see her baby lying in a cardboard bed, when she could carry it on her shoulder and pat it on the back.

So, I guess the attachment parenting stuff is working...it just gets in the way of symbolic Christmas rituals.

When Zooey got up, I slipped the baby doll in the manger again, as Edyn was distracted with something else. But when I pointed it out to him, he said, "THAT's not Baby Jesus, Mom! That's just Edyn's doll..." At which point, she shrieked and ran over to rescue the baby again.

Oh, well, I tried.

--Sparki