The Baby Jesus Chronicles

December 17, 2007:
Jesus is Born, as proclaimed by Charlotte the Herald

December 25, 2007:
The family sings Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus. He also has his first ride in a sling made out of a beach-y sarong bought by my sister on a research trip to Panama.

January 10, 2008:
"I put baby Jesus in a cage. The cage doesn't have a floor."

January 12, 2008:
Baby Jesus is laid to rest for the evening in a doll-sized cradle at the foot of Charlotte's bed, wrapped in a swaddling Winnie the Pooh pillowcase.

January 13, 2008:
Baby Jesus is not allowed to go to church. He must, instead, wait naked on the floor of the car.

January 14, 2008:
Baby Jesus is now inside the pillowcase, the opening neatly rolled shut.


Note:
I don't know that I'm brave enough to publish this post without explanation. Amusing though it might be to see if I get any strange or negative feedback, I'm really more interested in sharing some of the exploits of our 3-year old.

Baby Jesus, if you haven't already guessed, is a plastic baby doll that Charlotte got for her 2nd birthday, and who has only recently acquired a name. "He" looks anatomically female, and would actually wet a diaper should someone "feed" him through the hole in his mouth, a feature that we haven't shared with our daughter yet. He has one or two outfits that actually fit, but is frequently naked as Charlotte isn't quite dextrous enough yet to maneuver those arms and legs into the right spots. He is usually swaddled in a blanket. Any blanket.

Charlotte and Trystan were "helping" me with laundry last week, with Trystan attempting to use an empty laundry basket for pull-up practice. After tipping it over on himself several times (with and without Charlotte's help) I finally turned the thing upside down for stability. Charlotte, of course, saw the overturned basket for the same thing that every little kid sees it as--a cage. Lacking a zoo animal, she put her baby doll in it, leaving it there until the next day where I found it when getting ready to do more laundry. Her quote was remarkably easy to understand, if not comprehend (my husband didn't think he heard her right, until he saw it for himself...).

I have been considering moving several of Charlotte's larger doll furniture pieces to her room semi-permanently. That might give her inspiration for play activities that don't involve tormenting her brother when we're all upstairs, and would save floor space in our family and basement play rooms, which are getting overrun by toys lately. I started with the little cradle the other night, as an experiment. She is so far happy to have the baby bed in her room. The pillowcase was the quickest thing I could lay my hands on when Charlotte requested that her baby have a blanket for bedtime (this was like her 8th request before she could fall asleep...after tooth brushing, books, snuggles, water, kisses, etc). I didn't expect her to use it as a means of transportation for the doll later. Then again, I don't expect a lot of the things that she says and does lately. That's just part of the fun of parenthood, I guess.