Every night at bedtime we say prayers with Danny. It is part of our nightly routine, we never skip it. After dinner Danny gets a bath and plays a bit. We then brush teeth, read stories and then say our prayers. We are Catholic, but my family was protestant until I was about eight-years-old. That being said, we say formal prayers as well as prayers right from the heart. Danny is starting to memorize the Catholic prayers that we say, he says the words that he can, right at the appropriate time. It is so sweet to see and hear. He also remembers all the people in our family who we pray for, each night. If I say "bless uncle Bri Bri," he immediately says "Haley," because he knows we pray for them together.
It really warms my heart.
Danny has had a few nightmares in the past two months. Two nights he had what seemed to be night terrors. He woke up screaming, but I guess was still asleep because when we went in to check on him he tried to fight us off. One night this week he came to our room in tears. The next morning he told me, after I asked what scared him, that he saw a ghost. No more Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown for him. . .
The night after his first nightmare, after prayers I told him that if he ever gets scared he just has to say Jesus and everything will be ok. I told him if he says a prayer when he is scared then the scary thing will go away and he can go back to sleep.
Tonight, as soon as I closed his bedroom door he began to cry and came to his door. As I walked him back to bed I told him not to be scared, and that everything would be alright. I told him I was still home, just not in his room. As he laid back down on his bed he closed his eyes and said "Jesus, Jesus."
It might just have been the most precious thing I have ever seen. Not only does it remind me that he is getting bigger and understanding so much of what I say to him, but it also showed me that he is such a sweet little boy, who is going to grow up loving God and having faith. I know I can't be sure that he grows up to be a "good little Catholic," but I can do my best to give him an example of that. I love that he is only two and knows to pray and ask for God's help when he is scared.
My only hope is that this kind of sweetness and innocence can stay with him, even if just a little bit, through middle school and high school, kids those ages are scary little monsters!
