Thank you for my nightlight

William said his first prayer by himself tonight. It was rambling and hilarious and wonderful, all at the same time.

As I wrote in an earlier post, we've been trying to be more consistent about saying a prayer with/for him at bedtime. You know, we say, "Dear God," and let him repeat after us. And tonight, after I finally got him to settle down and said "Dear God" three times, he took control.

It went something like this:

"Dear God, thank you for my warm house, my pa-wents, my fwends, my famly, my toys, my books, my Mark, my DeeDee, my Baby Jesus set, my lamp, my nightlight, my family, my warm house, nice day....ahhhhh-men."

I was thoroughly charmed. I guess he's been paying attention after all! And so what if he's mostly just repeating stuff that we've said before? Isn't that how we learn most prayers to begin with? Surely I knew the words of "The Lord's Prayer" by heart many years before I really began to grasp what they meant. He understands that we want him to pray and to be thankful for all the good things and people in his life, and that's good enough for me.