People Prayer

Wyatt and I pray together at dinner and before bed every day. It’s taken two years for him to join in on our praying. When he was two or so, prayer was something he didn’t have time for and wasn’t interested in, but now he usually says the dinner prayer on his own - one he learned from day care. It’s always cute to hear a child pray, something about the innocence of it I guess.

Our bed time prayer usually starts with a traditional child’s prayer like “now I lay me down to sleep” and follows with praying for family members and thankfulness for what God has given us. Last night as we finished his child’s prayer I gave him a kiss, said good night and started to leave the room when Wyatt stopped me and asked “What about the people prayer?” I turned quickly and knelt beside Wyatt’s bed and we gave thanks for the day God had given us and asked that he smile upon Grandma and Popo and Sissy.

And with one last kiss good night, I turned the lights down low, and then I heard the words every parent longs to hear at the end of the day, “I love you Dad!”
Thank you Lord.

Say what you mean?

Sometimes kids say things they don’t mean. For that matter, so do adults! But it’s often more amusing when a child does it. Like last Saturday night, I put Wyatt in the tub and jokingly said, “Don’t pee in the tub!” I left for two minutes and the first thing he said when I returned, “I didn’t pee in the tub?!” ...Sure you didn’t.

I’m finding that kids say a lot of things they don’t really mean, whether it’s I’m cold when they mean hot or when you don’t give them what they want you hear the heart breaker, “I don’t love you” or “You’re not my friend.” You have to analyze most everything a child says to decode what they really mean. Because the fact is they do love you, as much as they want to be loved by you.

Imagination

Kids have a great imagination - much better than adults. It seems we loose the wonder of infinite possibilities somewhere between realizing Santa Clause is a fake and getting a job to support ourselves. I was made more aware of this the other day when Wyatt and I were on our way to daycare and he was playing with one of his favorite toys, a crane that I had obviously repaired numerous times as you could tell from all the extra screws and pins in it. I said to Wyatt that I might not be able to repair the crane too many more times because it was getting so worn out. He said, “ That’s OK Daddy I can fix it. Oh man! I left my tools at home!” I replied, “ Well Wyatt you’re just going to have to use your imagination.” He said, “ My imagination? Hmm. Oh man!” And I said, “ What’s wrong?” Wyatt cried out, “I got my imagination all dirty now I’ll have to wash it!” Now that’s a great imagination!

I didn’t give that incident another thought until he had a friend of his over to play. The boys were playing outside and I heard Wyatt’s friend shout, “Oh no, the ladder on the clubhouse broke!” I heard Wyatt reply “That’s ok, I’ll use my imagination and fix it!” And both boys went to work fixing the ladder, using their magical imaginations.