It's easy to get lost in the routine no matter what you do. If you don't have down time to reflect, talk, and try to think then you don't change anything. You end up doing the same thing over and over.
One of my friends (another Mike), posted on Facebook that he was proud of his son. He was right to be proud, too. For the first time, little Lucas mentioned one of his daycare friends in his nightly prayer. Lucas is half a year younger than Shane.
It made me stop to think: Is Shane old enough to learn to pray?
I remember my family's nightly prayer as a kid. "God is great. God is good, and we thank him for this day. God bless....[insert list]...and everyone we love, amen." It was rote. It had a cant to it, but it was something we all did.
I decided to try and pray with Shane tonight after I laid him down. He stays awake and asks me, "Daddy sleep" every night, so it's not like he's snoring as I sneak out.
It was comical.
Shane thought I was about to sleep in the room with him and got really hyper. He threw himself down with a bounce on his pillow. He yelled "SHANE SLEEP!" and started fake snoring. "HAAAAWK SHOOOOO! HAAAAWK SHOOOOO!"
I gently prayed throughout (I couldn't remember my old childhood prayer at the time, so I ad-libbed it). Shane would jump up, yell "DADDY SLEEP!" and try to run off the bed. It was hard not to laugh on one level and on the other, I admit, I was a little annoyed and thinking "you need to sleep so I can have a break!" In my head, I was praying "Please let Shane go to sleep! Please let Shane go to sleep! Please?" Ha ha.
With most things in parenting, it feels like the first attempt never goes remotely as planned. I'll keep trying, though.
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