1 Mother 2 Another

Cora’s big into playing with baby
dolls right now, and in fact Santa’s bringing her a cradle to
set next to her bed so her dolly can sleep near her. She takes care
of her and dresses her and rocks her, and in fact has legally
changed dolly’s name to Baby Jesus. When I say legally, I
mean she stood in the middle of the room and said, “Listen
up, guys, dolly’s name is Baby Jesus now, ok? I mean it, ok,
guys?” (And yes, she really does talk like a wise guy.) So
Baby Jesus now goes with her to the park, gets put night-night, and
so on. Cora’s quite protective of the doll.


As I mentioned yesterday, Cora’s going to be in the Christmas
pageant this year, as an angel. (Stick with me – I promise
I’m tying all this together soon). She’s quite excited
and can’t wait to do it for an audience on Thursday, and in
fact was talking to her grandfather about the big night yesterday
at lunch.


“Yep, so Papa, I’m going to dance and sing, and maybe
I’ll get to hold the baby Jesus afterwards.”

My antennae went up at this, and I quickly
thought through all ramifications and permutations this
conversation might go through and lead to. “Oh, kiddo, I
don’t think you’ll be holding the baby Jesus tomorrow.
That’s going to be played by a real baby, and he won’t
need anyone to hold him.”


“Well,” my stubborn two-year-old said, “maybe I
will. Angels comfort babies all the time, and maybe baby Jesus will
be crying.”


It was at this point that I dimly remembered a section of pageant
rehearsal on Monday where the teacher was trying to get all the
angels to clear off over towards the manger. “And now
it’s time for the angels to move to Jesus! Oh! Maybe Jesus is
crying, and the angels need to fly to comfort him!”


Crap.


“Hey, kiddo, the thing is, you know God made all the angels,
right?” Cora nodded solemnly. “Well, you know, angels
are built to do only what God tells them to do, did you know that?
God sends some angels for protection, and some as messengers, and
some just sit around and praise God all the time! So while there
might be some angels sent to comfort a crying baby, there are other
angels built just to dance and sing about Jesus!”


Ha. Not bad, huh?


“Well,” Cora said, with a return to that stubborn look,
“Maybe there will be one angel who sings and dances AND holds
the baby Jesus.”


I got down on her level and looked at her earnestly. “Cora,
honey, this is important. You can NOT pick up the baby Jesus, ok?
That baby will be heavy, and there’s going to be a big girl
there pretending to be Mary who can comfort him if he cries. So no
picking up Jesus, ok, honey? Just dancing and singing and flying
over to adore him.” Visions of my two-year-old stubbornly
trying to pick up a chubby seven-month-old as his mom anxiously
watched on danced through my head. I do not put it past Cora to
single-handedly fight off anyone trying to get in between her and
her mission.


Cora began sidling off, but not before repeating over her shoulder,
“Like I said, maybe there will be one angel who sings and
dances and adores AND holds the baby Jesus if he cries. It’s
her job.”


My twenty-one-year-old nephew looked at me across the table and
said, “Please tell me you’re going to videotape
this.”


Way ahead of you. Just hope it can’t be used against us in a
kidnapping lawsuit.