You've got to Pray!

I still consider myself a new parent. I pretty much know the things I want to teach J about but I don't know when to start teaching him things. He just seems to learn things and I notice and start to add to them. For example one day I asked him, "What does a Cow say?" and he said "Mooooooo" I then asked what other animals say and he always answers Moo, so we have been working on animal sounds. Each day at breakfast I try to make sure we have our prayer. For months I prayed while J ate. Then one day I noticed that when I said it was prayer time he stopped eating and folded his little hands together. Who taught him this? Ken and I both fold our arms, but hands work too, did they have a nursery lesson about this? It didn't really matter where he learned it, we encouraged it. If it was prayer time and J wasn't folding his hands we folded our hands to remind him. It has been lots of fun at dinner as J has learned a little more about prayer. Sometimes he even prays, he does this by babbling and saying something that sounds kind of like Amen at the end. I think it is particularly hilarious when someone is already voicing the prayer and J starts his prayer in the middle and finishes quickly, and laughs at us while we are still praying, like we were just silly and taking too long.

I have said J's night time prayers on a hit and miss basis, mostly when he is sick or has been having a hard time sleeping. At those times I will pray with him before bed mostly to try to reassure him and myself that everything will be fine and that Jesus and Heavenly Father are watching out for him. We had a day like that this Tuesday, J decided to eat and drink everything he could get his hands on, from Toothpaste, to Triple Antibiotic Ointment, to the heavily Menthol scented "Inhalant" oil that goes with his steam humidifier. He didn't eat enough Toothpaste to poison him. His doctors have told me to use the antibiotic Ointment on his face in place of his Eczema steroid because it is safe if he gets it in his eyes or if he eats it. And the Menthol "Inhalant" says right on it "if swallowed accidentally, may act as a mild cathartic". But I still wondered why J was trying to give me a heart attack and so before bed time I said that we should have family prayers.

We were all sitting on the couch together watching TV, Ken paused the show and we all got ready to pray. After we were done we decided that it wasn't quite bedtime and we let J stay up with us a little longer. About 5 minutes later I noticed that J's little hands were folded and ready for another little prayer, so we prayed again and 5 minutes after that he wanted to say another prayer. This kid likes to pray, he had the biggest smile on his face each time, it was one of the sweetest things I have ever seen. We all slept pretty good that night, how could we not sleep well, we had prayed at least 5 or 6 times that we would all get a good nights sleep.

Last night it was getting close to J's bed time and asked if we should say nighttime prayers again, J quickly folded his hands. We enjoyed 3 prayers last night too.

I just love the fact that he wants to pray, that he catches our attention and folds his little hands. I may not know the exact times I need to teach him things, but I am pretty sure as long as I am trying to set a good example, and talking with him and sharing things with him, he will let me know when he is ready to have me teach him more.