Relating to baby Jesus through their baby brother

By Dr. Heather Bozant Witcher
Clarion Herald

One of my favorite things about having the boys start to grow up is to see them starting to put things together: to recognize and understand the events that are unfolding around them.

They haven’t yet connected the import of Santa. We have an abundance of Christmas books that we read and talk about Santa. But I don’t think that they equate Santa with the Christmas season … or really understand the season much at all. They visited Santa Claus – and we had the typical 2-year-old response – meltdown. Their baby brother, on the other hand, was all smiles.

I figure next year, at 3 1/2, is when they’ll really understand what happens on Christmas morning, with presents and Santa Claus. Perhaps then I’ll start getting asked for gifts. And then, I’ll look forward to the twins helping with presents for their baby brother.

I’ll gladly wait on that part.

But, this year, we did start seeing a connection between the Nativity and baby Jesus. We have the “Once Upon a Manger” board book that goes through all the animals and the people who travel to Bethlehem to visit baby Jesus. At first, they loved pointing out the animals and sounding out the words. Making the animal sounds, they would find similar animals in their other books. And then, suddenly, they connected with baby Jesus.

Each night, we read different books together before bedtime. The twins get ready in their room, while the baby and I wind down in the nursery before joining the older siblings in their room. And then the book begins.

When we arrived at the page with baby Jesus, all of a sudden, they started excitedly saying baby. Then, they pointed to their brother: baby Jesus and baby Sydney. Now, when we meet baby Jesus in the board book, they snuggle their brother.

We started with the book and then added a children’s Nativity set of small figurines. As I opened the tube and started marching the figures across our coffee table – acting out the travel to Bethlehem – the toddlers were spellbound. Repeating the phrases from the book, we saw each animal, each shepherd, each wiseman make their way to the end of the table with Mary and Joseph. Finally, baby Jesus arrived.

They immediately got up and started looking around the living room. It made sense, I told myself; they have very short attention spans. But then I realized they were looking for something very specific. Syd was getting his diaper changed. As soon as my husband came out of the nursery with the baby, the boys brought him over to our Nativity scene.

Baby Jesus and Baby Sydney.

The innocence of children. And a reminder of why our Savior entered the world as an innocent, defenseless infant.

hbozantwitcher@clarionherald.org