A prayer with Andrew

I love this boy, this Andrew-alligator going through 3-year-old angst combined with middle-child syndrome.

He's like the girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead: "When she was good, she was very very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid."

He does what Benny used to do at this age when he would wake up from an unexpected or late nap. He cries. Make that screams and cries. And he can have a doozy of a tantrum.


I saw this happen last week. On Wednesday JB and I attended our ward's temple night. We had a chapel devotional at 6 PM, then attended the 7 PM session. We were so happy to see a large number of our ward there that night with us, by the way. So happy.

But it meant a late night for me (with my alarm coming even earlier on Thursday morning -- I had to be in the newsroom at 3 AM to fill in for the producer). And it meant a late night for our boys, who didn't get to bed until 10 PM.

The next day, Andrew had a rough time.

He was tired. And cranky. And it snowballed until bedtime. He would not stop crying, and it turned to screaming and crying and tantruming so bad that no one could function. After another silent quick prayer for heavenward help, I felt like I should give an outloud prayer. So I gathered the sobbing Andrew into my lap, and prayed with him.

I talked about how we had taken time out of our lives to go to the temple, and how we have been promised we could be blessed for that sacrifice – and I asked God for that blessing right now.

And it came.  Andrew immediately calmed down. His breathing slowed, he relaxed, I put him down on his toddler bed and he cuddled into the pillow quietly, then he smiled as he lifted his face up for his goodnight kiss.

The big boys looked at me from their bunkbed with eyes like, “YES! HE’S QUIET!” I gave them their kisses, then softly closed the door. Still quiet!   

As I tiptoed back up the stairs, I said another prayer:

“Thank you, Heavenly Father, thank you for this moment of peace.”