I Think He's Ready

Last night, Casinodad went out w/ a co-worker to dinner & to see the new Star Trek movie. While he was gone, I let the munchkins stay up a little later & watch a Scooby-Doo movie. I put them to bed about 9:15. The Archangel & The Princess fell asleep right away. About 9:35, while I was watching TV & nursing The Saint, the Prophet came down, unable to fall asleep. He occasionally has trouble sleeping - nothing serious, just a typical 8 yr. old w/ a lot of thoughts running through his head. Sometimes we let him stay down w/ us for a while, so I did that last night.

I turned off the TV & asked if he wanted me to read his new book, Joseph & Chico. So, as I continued to feed The Saint, I read a part of the book. (It's really cute so far!)

Afterwards, we had a nice talk. I had decided to talk to him about something I'd read in both Rediscovering Catholicism & Raising Better Families (both by Matthew Kelly). A recurring theme in his books is to ask yourself it what you do/say/think/etc. is helping you become a best-version-of-yourself. So, The Prophet & I talked about thinking before acting. I used various examples of his siblings accidently hurting him & whether he should retaliate or not. We also applied this to food (esp. Mommy & her chocolate - which, I think does help my sanity & stress levels!!) I started to mention another example when he said that he knew of something that would help make us the best-version-of-ourselves - The Body & Blood of Jesus.

Yep, I'd say he's ready for his First Holy Communion on Saturday!

P.S. - After some more interesting discussions, I took him & The Saint up to bed. I came back down & was writing out the above so that I would remember it this morning. I heard a couple of thumps upstairs & went up to investigate. When I got into the boys' room, The Prophet was sitting on The Archangel's bed tucking his covers between the bed & wall. The Archangel had fallen out of bed & The Prophet thought tucking the covers in would help so he wouldn't do it again.

There are times when these munchkins drive be so crazy & I question whether we're good parents (like our shopping trip to Aldi today). Then, there are these moments of tenderness & compassion that bring tears to my eyes. Somehow, something is going right!