What Can Brown Do For You?

Recently Thing 3, my almost 2 year old with adorable fat rolls on her cute little forearms, has developed a fierce love of baby dolls. Baby dolls that are usually not hers. Baby dolls that belong to the church nursery and kid rooms. I spend a lot of time there doing childcare for various ministry groups-sometimes 3 days a week-so it doesn't bother me much when she wants to "borrow" one when we leave b/c I know we'll be back the next day and can just return it. Like a baby library of sorts. (baby DOLLS of course-not real babies-the would be weird, people) But thie week, a new part of her baby love has developed. She only wants to love on, rock and take home the brown babies. It is entirely based on her naturally seeing beauty in them b/c since she is still mostly a "baby" herself, she knows very little about our adoption other than to point at my Africa necklace and say "Baby!" (based on a wee bit of prompting from her Mama). She was carrying around a peach-colored baby and a brown baby the other day and it was time to go. Since we already had one purloined bean-bag infant sitting on the counter at home (I forgot to bring it back that day-whoops), I told her to put the babies back. She very sweetly handed me the peach-colored one to put on the shelf, then fiercely clutched the brown one to her chest, patted the baby, said "my!" ("mine" for those who don't speak Toddler), and walked away with her little one. I have to admit, while I am not condoning disobedience or theft, that little brown baby doll is still at our house and she has not put it down since and I love it. Her birthday is in 2 weeks and I know exactly what she will be getting from us! It has been sweet to watch my little spitfire be so sweet and tender toward her little baby and I am thinking she may just turn out to be a nice big sister after all (we have been a little concerned-she's pretty possessive of her things, particularly her Mom) But most of all, it has brought tears to my eyes as I think about the day when I am handed my own little brown beauty and I can clutch it to my chest and say, with praise to my almighty God, "my".