Sweet Moments

Just wanted to share these sweet moments I had with Nathan the past 24 hours before I forget. This morning I had gotten him all ready for the day and I still had a few things to do before going downstairs.  He asked if he could go downstairs to play and I told him "Sure" and I'd be down in a minute.  As I was letting him through the baby gate he said "God will be with me so I won't be alone."  I had to double check what he said and yes that's exactly what he said.  I said "You're right bud!  God is with us all the time so we're never really alone."

It was so sweet and special.  Especially because lately he's been telling me that he doesn't like to be alone--when he has to take a nap, when he goes to bed, or when he has to play by himself.  So I'm glad he's learned and realized that God is always with him so being alone doesn't feel so scary.

I'm learning that sometimes my best conversations and sweetest moments with Nathan come right before he goes to sleep as I'm doing the final "turn out the light, sing 1-2 more songs, and say goodnight" routine.  I've really been trying to be a good listener during these times because he lets me in on things he's thinking about, worrying about, wants to know about, etc.  Last night we were talking about courage and being brave.  It came up because he was brave when he saw the Mariners moose yesterday.  Last year he cried the whole time and he was determined to be brave and say hi to the moose this year and he did great!  He was asking me other times when he's been brave and I started rattling off a long list--riding the roller coaster, swimming, riding his new bike, going to school, meeting new friends, swinging on the big boy swing, going down the slide, playing by himself, trying new foods, etc.  Then he asked me when I'm brave.  And I had to think a minute and really couldn't come up with too many things.  It was a good challenging moment of thinking about my life and am I stretching myself enough and doing new things or expanding my horizons?  I guess being a parent is pretty brave every day huh?  Anyway it was really late and it was the hardest thing to stop the conversation so he could go to bed.  In these moments this great quote keeps going through my head:

“Listen earnestly to anything [your children] want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”

​  -Catherine Wallace