Answer to prayer

I have been struggling to love Teddy, and today he showed me that I need to slow down and really see how beautiful he is.

This morning we did errands to the south and then went straight to Lucia's speech therapy.

Lucia at her speech therapy. The sound of the week was /p/, so we worked on that.

She got the /k/ sound on her own and/or listening to her little brother.

We had three children running around: "Gok! Gok! Gok!"

Fr. Peter had to go straight to church to deal with the door and the locksmith, so I had the three kids who were having lunch at two o'clock as well as getting all the groceries in and put away. So I took a nap. (Let's just pause for a moment, because it really was a beautiful nap.)

So I noticed some movement, and there was Teddy at the doorway looking at me. I really didn't want him to need me to do anything that requires either speech or movement, so I asked, "What do you want?" and the reply was a simple: "I was going to kiss you when you were asleep." And I got a hug, and held his hand and closed my eyes. He stuck around, but didn't seem all that keen on just standing there, so I said he could come around and lie down next to me.

Then I figured I should say something, because I didn't want to just lose that lovely connection, of just liking him. I asked, "What was your favorite part of today?" and he said, "Having a balloon." (We went to a store for the first time ever and each child got a balloon on a stick.) Next question: "What was your favorite part of yesterday?" "Communion." It still floors me how important this is to him, just simply and viscerally. I don't know how to recover my conversational footing, so I asked, "What are you looking forward to?" and he replied, "Getting my balloon back."

I've been really praying to have the lightly-held connection between us get reinforced, and today it was. I am so grateful for his sensitive spirit. Sometimes—most of the time—that is hard to remember.

We also got permission to leave for our road trip a day earlier, splitting a 12-hour drive into two days, meaning we get to see some dearly beloved people for more than a fuel-and-stretch stop and still getting to our destination hours late. Of course, now that means there is less time to get everything in. I meant to do laundry today...