preschool pageantry
sheepishly curious
The kids' church preschoolers put on a Christmas Pageant yesterday during church. They didn't present it to the whole congregation—probably a good thing, considering the very little amount of preparation involved—but a select group of parents attended and enjoyed a sparklingly entertaining presentation. Harvey had a great time, except for being in a strange room in front of lots of people.
He—along with the rest of his class—was a sheep. It took some convincing to get him to put on the delightful hand-made hat when I dropped him off; but as he is a fan of both hats and sheep once he had it on he consented that it was kind of cool. His friend Ollie declined to wear his hat, or to carry it, or even to touch it, but on the other hand Ollie walked into the pageant room calmly and quietly, even if he was visibly rather apprehensive about what on earth was going on. Harvey, on the other hand, was carried in literally crying and screaming. He wanted everyone to know that while he—barely!—was willing to spend some time in his classroom, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with any other rooms and what were they trying to do with him and oh my goodness. He wouldn't have made it in if his parents hadn't been there, needless to say.
"fear not" ?
With a comfortable lap to sit in, though, he settled down to enjoy the show. Sure he didn't baa on command—that responsibility was outsourced to me—but since most of what he tells me about kids church are the things he didn't do I take that as par for the course. ("I didn't sing a song." "I didn't drink any juice." So go his typical reports of his formal religious education.) He stood up to see what was going on when the angel Gabriel mumblingly appeared to Mary—wonderful acting for four-year-olds, it was!—and enjoyed the singing, even if he typically declined to take part.
practicing for the part of innkeeper someday
If he could walk Zion would have shown his big brother how it's done: he had to be restrained from raiding the props bin, conveniently located right next to where we were sitting. But then, Harvey too was pretty outgoing at <1 year, if I recall, and we see where that's gotten him now!