A few days ago Harrison was parked at his tiny
table with his chicken nuggets as per the usual when I noticed he was acting
odd. It was as if he was waiting on someone to do something.
I know he’s been paying more attention to what we
are doing lately simply because before he eats he wanders over to the utensil
drawer and digs out a fork.
Suddenly he uses a big fork to eat chicken nuggets.
But he was just sitting there, hand in his lap,
waiting for something.
Suddenly the thought came to me that maybe since
he’s copying us on getting a fork that he also wants to copy us with praying
before a meal.
In case you’re wondering, no we haven’t forced
closing his eyes and folding his hands for prayer. At two it’s essentially the
equivalent of getting feral cat to fold its hand and close its eyes in prayer.
He’s not your sitting still kind of kid.
I asked him, “Harrison do you want someone to pray
with you?”
He looked at me, stuck out his little hands and
said, “Yes.”
My heart nearly melted into a puddle.
So we prayed over his chicken nuggets.
Which ended up being the most prayed over chicken
nuggets in the history of human existence.
The situation evolved into praying for each
nugget.
The basically every bite.
He started saying, “A-nen” after each prayer.
Which evolved to yelling, “Yay!” and clapping
after he said “A-nen.”
Because who doesn’t cheer for a good prayer?
Y’all there’s a lot to parenting that I’m just not
a fan of. (See also the first 6 months) But these cute little moments when you
can see that something is sinking in, something you do is being noticed by your
child… it’s all worth it.
I’ll suffer a sleepless night to be able to
witness the adorable things this little boy does and all the learning that
takes place that I don’t even realize is happening.
