A Mother's Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the gift of my wildly spirited second child. I know there was a point when I doubted you and your plan for my family, and I see now you were just waiting for the right sperm to meet with the right egg and swim into my heart.

Thank you for his fierce independence, going to the convenience store by himself before he was 2.

Thank you for his efforts in cleaning up his own messes, even if he won't touch the toys in the playroom. Thank you for his friend S, as a wonderful co-conspirator in crime. Thank you for his potty-training, that we left diapers long ago, but somehow still poop on the bathroom floor at least weekly, and S who tried to keep him out of trouble tonight by helping to clean the poop. But most of all, God, thank you for a toilet to poop in, a floor to poop on, bleach and running water to clean it all up with, and a washer to put the rugs in.

Thank you for friends who take my big kid to hockey, probably against his will for the next 5 practices and 12 games (but who's counting?).

Thank you for a big and a little boy who are afraid of the dark, and spill the events of the day the moment I turn off the bedroom light, as we sit and talk in the dark, keeping all of us up too late.

Thank you, God, for the gifts in my life. Someday when they're all grown up, I'm gonna miss this.

God, be with the kids and moms and dads in Haiti. May they find silly, frustrating, simple problems like mine again. May they find a new sense of normal, of trust, of calm, with you in the center of it.

Amen.