bedtime

There are a few things that are guaranteed to happen once we announce that it's bedtime at our house.

1. Ethan will whine about something - usually that he doesn't WANT to go to bed. He's NOT tired. He doesn't NEED to go potty - get the picture?

2. Negotiations from Elliott....tonight, for example, he says "whoever gets me something to drink better than water like orange juice or something doesn't have to lay down with me" Nice try.

3. The content of Elliott's prayers: "Dear God, Thank you for this wonderful day. And please make me not think about fires and if there is a fire let us all get out safely. And please keep the bees out of our house. And I love you very much. Amen" Not sure about the bees - one night he woke us up saying there was a bee trying to get him. He had even shut his door after he left to come into our room to keep the bees. out of the rest of the house. For some reason he is very concerned that there is going to be a fire in the house while we are sleeping. He was really upset that he couldn't stop thinking about it at night, so we reminded him that the best thing to do is pray about it. So that seemed to help and then one night he said it wasn't working anymore and that it was too hard to trust God to take care of things (yes, that's a difficult thing to learn). So I tried to think of a good example of a story from the Bible that illustrated how complete trust in God was the best course of action. Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea was what popped in my head and that brings me to the next guarantee.....

4. Elliott will want to read about Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea. Tonight I found him thumbing through his new Adventure Bible saying "I'm just trying to find Exodus." The other day he said that Moses was his 2nd favorite story. The one with the little breads in the cloud was his favorite. Huh? Oh, the manna falling down. Let me tell you, he has some GREAT teachers at church!!!

5. As I'm leaving Ethan's room after tucking him in, he will call after me "Will you check on me?" Yes. Goodnight Ethan. See you in the morning. "See you in the morning...I'll eat breakfast with you!" Those may be my favorite words of the day - I love knowing that he's already ready to see me again in the morning. And breakfast really is my time with Ethan. We're the only early birds, so I get to spend a few minutes just with him before the other two wander down the stairs.

Goodnight!!