Charlie's Prayers

Charlie has begged to say the dinnertime prayer for months now, so he says it a lot. In fact, we have often listened to two prayers before eating because he gets his feelings hurt if someone else says it. Until today, the prayer always went:

"Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for the day. Please bless that this food will be tasty..." And you know how it ends.

Today, for the first time ever, he changed it up. It went:

"Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for today. Thank you for the fog. Please let it snow. Thank you for letting us be together. Thank you for letting me start over. Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for today. Thank you for Lynnae. Thank you for Mommy. Thank you for Dad. Thank you for Charlie. Thank you for Frederick [his stuffed rabbit toy]. Thank you for Frederick's carrot. [LOOOOONG Pause] I love you too. Please help us be happy. And the food will be good for us..." And then the usual ending.

Okay, so there was a lot of pausing between each of these sentences, and the prayer was nearly 5 minutes long. But how cute! This prayer showed me a few things:

1. Charlie is definitely growing up.. his increasing fluency is even finding its way into prayers now.
2. Charlie is learning how to be thankful for lots of things... which is good, because lately he spends a lot of time stomping his foot and throwing mini-fits when I say no about whatever it is he thinks he should do.
3. Charlie is more intuitive even then I give him credit for. "Please help us be happy." That one really, actually, is very appropriate to the times in our family.
4. At least someone is grateful that the fog is here.

Actually, I felt really touched for a moment and I would not be surprised to know that Charlie was hearing answers in his head. The way he paused before he said, "I love you too," was very interesting. My little boy is growing up and getting more personality every day! And isn't it neat that a 3 year old can say things with such simplicity that can touch a 33 year old more than anything else that has happened in a week?