Quote of the Day: "I broke baby Jesus!"

We have three little handmade nativity scenes that we now have out for the Advent season. One is from Bethlehem/The West Bank, one is from Mexico, and the third is actually one of our most valued possessions on earth — it is a beautiful tiny clay nativity scene from Haiti. Of course the centerpiece of the Haitian nativity set is an itty bitty tiny little black baby Jesus lying in an itty bitty manger. The boys are enthralled with all three of the nativity sets, but seem especially taken with the Haitian one (probably mostly because they see Braydon and I covet it so). Anyway, a couple of nights ago I was looking at the nativity scenes with the boys. They are allowed to play with them, and move the little figures and animals around, etc. They love to point out the baby Jesus in each scene and try to figure out which of the people are his “mommy” and his “papi.” But the rule is that we have to be very, very careful. They were getting rambunctious and I kept reminding them –firmly– to be soooooo careful. Kyle was holding the Haitian baby Jesus when all of a sudden, caught up in his and his brother’s antics, he dropped it on the floor. It broke into three tiny pieces. Forget any symbolism of the holy trinity or any such thing — Kyle immediately burst into hysterical crying, utterly distraught, and totally upset with himself for breaking it. He cried for about 5 minutes straight (a long time for him). As a family, we’ve tried to just put that tragic moment behind us and move on with our lives, but Kyle won’t let us. He reminds us multiple times daily, at random intervals, by saying to us in a factual-yet-somewhat-still-shocked-tone: “I broke baby Jesus!”