Prayers

Emerson has really gotten into saying prayers recently. He doesn't really care about bedtime prayers, just mealtime ones. He's been getting upset with us if we try to say it without his help, then he'll start crying and we'll try to figure out what's wrong and he'll sob, "blessing food!" so we'll have to give him a turn. And he's just like every other kid when all he says in the last line is AMEN! with all the gusto he can muster. Then sometimes he'll add a "Good boy!" to compliment himself afterward.

This morning he wanted to help with the prayer over breakfast, so we began our simple, vainly repetitious prayer and he threw in "happy dreams" all by himself because that's what we say at bedtime and we finished the prayer. Then this is the conversation that ensued:

"Mommy, blessings."

"That's right, we say thank you for our blessings."

"Uh uh uh blessings."

"Right, we say thank you when we talk to Heavenly Father, don't we?"

"No, uh-Mike!"

"We talk to Heavenly Father when we're saying our prayers, huh?"

"NO, MIKE!"

Apparently Emerson thinks we've been praying to Mike (Richards). He's a great guy and is the father of E's two favorite people, but I'm not sure where the praying-to-him thing came from. There's just no reasoning with a 2-year-old. But I guess Mike should feel good that Emerson looks up to him that much. Maybe we'll start emphasizing the "Dear Heavenly Father" part even more now.