Lord, I Believe; Help My Unbelief...Also Some Insight Into the Mind of a Three Year Old Would be Good

As part of our morning routine, I have been trying to add in some prayer time with the kids before school.  All the bad weather we had last week actually helped me to get back into this habit, so I'm am a little, tiny bit happy for all that snow.  Still not a winter-lover though!!

We have a subscription to MagnifiKids! which is a missalette that Julie got the kids for Christmas.  It contains all the prayers and readings for Sunday Mass, as well as cartoons, games and activities for the week.  It also includes a morning and evening prayer that can be used during the week.

I had been tearing out the prayer page and putting it on the dresser next to Henry's bed.  It has been his special job to read the prayers for us in the evenings. He really enjoys this job and it makes him feel special.  My goal had also been for him to read the morning prayer as they were waking up, but getting them moving is a real struggle for us, so we had been skipping that more often than not.

I finally had the idea to separate the morning prayer from the evening prayer and put the morning prayer with our kids' devotional book at the table in the dining room.  So all last week, Henry would read the morning prayer and I would read from the devotional at breakfast time.

In the devotional there is a theme, a reflection and a bible verse.  I have been turning the theme and reflection into a question and using the bible verse as a responsorial.  On Friday the devotion was about faith and not worrying.  The verse was from Mark 9:24: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." The question I asked them Friday was about what they were worried about.  I explained that we would offer those worries to God and He would help us get through them.

Usually I ask Frances first so she can set the tone for the "right" answers, but this day I asked Henry first.  "Henry, are you worried about anything today?"  He thought for a moment and said, "I'm worried that somebody is going to punch me today." I didn't exactly have a response for that other than to repeat the verse and move on. (I don't really think anyone punches him at school.)

Frances mentioned that she was worried about a writing assignment she had for school that day.  We prayed, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." Then I asked Benjamin.  Because he is the youngest, his responses are basically a crapshoot in these instances.  He either says something completely unrelated (and we pray for that anyway) or he mimics something one of his siblings said.

Friday he said, "I worried that Bubby will punch me tonight."

Suppressing a grin, I led the others in the response: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."

Then we ate our breakfast.  Henry had actually eaten much earlier because he had been up before the alarm due to a bad dream.  At this point, he was just sitting at the table for prayer time and company.  He very sweetly looked at his little brother and said, "Benjamin, I promise, I won't punch you tonight."

Awwwwww!  I was so proud of him for trying to reassure his little brother.  And he looked proud of himself; trying so hard to be a good big brother.

And then Benjamin huffed loudly and PUNCHED HENRY IN THE ARM!!!!

In our house, being punched usually hurts the pride more than it hurts physically, but the hurt I saw in Henry's eyes was deep.  "Benjamin," I exclaimed. "Why did you do that!?!?!"

And with an epic pout on his face, he said, "Bubby said he wasn't gonna punch me."

"Did you want Henry to punch you?"

"YES!!!!"

And we all left the breakfast table quite a but more confused than when we had arrived.

What am I going to do with these boys?!

P.S. I linked this up over at Rosie's blog because she's running a linkup of crazy things your kids have said. Check them out for some laughs!