Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down ....

Tonight I had a revelation of what I'm in store for in my future years of child rearing. I realized that I am NOT the only one influencing my child. I mean I know this because we go to church where he is influenced, he stays with friends that influence him, I have him in preschool where he is influenced, so this should not come as a surprise to me, but tonight it hit me like a ton of bricks.

We were in the kitchen after dinner and C wanted to dance, so we held hands and started going in a circle. I immediately started singing ring-around-the-rosie and to my surprise, he joined in with me. It caught me so off guard, because to the best of my recollection I can not ever remember singing this with him, but in spite of that he still knew the song. Right there I realized that someone else had taught him this song. Someone else had showed him the "we all fall down" part and it wasn't me. Someone else had influence over my child.

I know that this sounds corny, but to me it was a moment. A moment of fear and excitment all in one. Fear for the things that I don't want him to be influenced with, but I know he will. Excitment in thinking about all the wonderful people in his life that will infuence him for good things. It made me think of how much we as parents need to be influencing our children so that hopefully our influences will out weight the "other" influences of the world. It also forces me to be aware of where my child is and who is there to influence him.

For our three year old, I'm pretty confident that right now the people with influence over him are positive and reenforcing what we are doing at home. I will pray diligently for positive influence on my boys.

Birthday party

Cayden (and Deacon too) went to his best girl friend's birthday party this weekend. Katie turned 3 and had a fabulous party at a dance studio. It was a Kindermusic party and both of my boys loved it so much! They loved the dancing and the Thomas cupcakes too!

Thanks Katie for a great time, and thanks for being a great friend!

Katie and Cayden have been in MDO in the same class for the past two years and they are such great friends! They are so excited when they see each other and are so cute together. Isn't it amazing how 3 year olds can have a best friend - they are innocent and pure and don't care what the other looks likes, or where they come from. Cayden and Katie are friends and that is so cool to me. I love that my 3 year old has a friend that he prayes for at night (Katie and Eli EVERY night) and looks forward to seeing.

Jesus .... reading the bible

One of my favorite things lately has been asking Cayden about his dreams when he wakes up from nap or in the morning. I have asked him this forever and he usually never answers me. Not sure if he understands what dreams are, but one day he will and I will look forward to hearing about each one.

Usually NO answer, but last week we got an answer. The funny thing is that since then everyday we get the same answer. It goes down about like this:

Mom: Hello sweet boy, did you have any dreams while you were sleeping?
Boy: (shakes head yes with thumb permanetly stuck in mouth for first 5 min after nap)
Mom: What was your dream about?
Boy: Jesus.
Mom: Jesus? Really, what was he doing.
Boy: Reading.
Mom: Reading? What was Jesus reading?
Boy: The bible.

End of conversation.

So, today after nap I walk into their room and am acting cheerful even though I just woke up from a dead sleep nap too, and without me asking our conversation unfolds like this:
Boy: Jesus.
Mom: What, baby?
Boy: I dream Jesus.
Mom: Really, what was Jesus doing?
Boy: On my pillow.
Mom: Jesus was on your pillow while you were sleeping?
Boy: (shake of the head with thumb stuck in it)

End of Conversation.

I LOVE the mind of a child. This morning when they woke up and I finally made it down there Cayden was rocking Elmo (at first I thought he was "nursing" but after a few questions he was in fact rocking and not nursing!) and singing to him. I loved it. Every once in a while I would hear a word that I could make out and he was singing "Jesus loves me". Oh it was absolutely precious!

These are the moments that I want to remember forever.