I Say a Little Prayer For You....

Carter's new obsession: prayers. Seth started doing bedtime prayers with him, and he loves it. He starts with the basics - God bless Mommy, Daddy, Carter, Maggie, and Ella (the dog). Then you don't know where it's headed after that. He seems to have a couple of favorite additional people to ask God to bless. Uncle Scott in particular is a recurring character at prayer time. Also, Ms. Angie, Mr. Brandon, Hunter, and Brynna, our friends who also happen to be his Sunday School teachers at present. When he first started prayers, he ended them with, "In Your name I pray, come in." Seth finally convinced him that the word was "amen" rather than "come in", but then he decided to end with "God amen", I guess for extra oomph.

Now, for the next part, I have to confess that before kids, we were not diligent with our mealtime blessings at our house. As Carter started talking, we started trying to remember, but we were still irregular at best. Well, Carter entering the two year old preschool class has solved that issue for us. We were working on the typical "God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food." Seth had a few issues with this one. He wanted to say "God is good. God is great." Then it didn't rhyme, which drove me nuts. At preschool, they get fancier. It starts with "Bow your head and close your eyes. Now it's time to talk to God." Then it moves on into the prayer: (sung to the tune of Frere Jacque) God our Father, God our Father, we thank you, we thank you. For our many blessings, for our many blessings. Amen, amen." Cute, right? Well, we can't just leave it at that. Carter wants to close his eyes to pray, but he doesn't want to miss anything. So he does this fluttery little thing with his eyes so that he has the best of both worlds. Then he sways to the music. So the result is what looks like a bad impression of Stevie Wonder singing the blessing. The funny thing is that he sings the blessing all of the time. I gave him a graham cracker the other day while he was riding in the back of the shopping cart at Target. I looked down and saw the eyes start to flutter and the body start to sway, and I knew it was coming. Yep, the blessing at the top of his lungs as he rode through Target. I'm sure everyone in that store thought I was a fanatic, making my kid say the blessing for a graham cracker!

Sometimes I have a really hard time keeping a straight face through Carter's prayers. But then I figure God is getting a little chuckle, too. Anyone who created two year olds is bound to have a good sense of humor.

Ahhh, Saturday

I remember leisurely Saturday mornings of sleeping in, followed by watching t.v. in bed. Then we'd get up and have a relaxing breakfast. Ahhh, the good old days. Now I am watching my second Saturday morning sunrise in a row. This week I'm watching with Carter, and Maggie and Seth are sleeping. I'm so envious of people who can put their kids to bed later than usual and have them sleep late the next day. We ran late at dinner last night and didn't get our incredibly tired children in bed until 8:45, so we had high hopes of sleeping in a little today. Ha.

Maggie woke first at 10:30 pm, needing a little love. Then she woke again at 3:00 am. She nursed, then drank 8 oz of formula before settling back down. This truly gave me false hope of sleeping late (and I mean past 6:30 when I say late). But alas, it was not meant to be. At 10 till 6, here came Carter climbing in bed with us. After some pathetic moans and groans from a cold-suffering Seth, I finally gave in and brought Carter in the living room so he could sleep.

Not to say it's all bad. I am being hand fed goldfish like a queen while I type. And Dr. Carter is checking me out, so I'll know that my health is perfect, too. I might even get a shot and a band aid. I'm also getting the best pretend haircut of my life. I was greeted by Maggie calling for Mamamama and standing up in her crib looking around at 6:30. How can you not enjoy that?

So, the good new is that I've definitely got a jump start on my day. The bad news is that I could already use a nap. Ahhhh, Saturday.