Josiah sings and prays...

Josiah is adding new words to his vocabulary every day. He still has a lot of gibberish which we can't understand, but he is slowly becoming more intelligible, making all of us so much happier.

Recently, I started singing to him little toddler songs, like "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Old MacDonald". One of his favorites is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", which he calls "Iddy Biddy". He loves doing the hand movements. I hope to capture it on video, but whenever he sees the camera come out, he completely forgets what he was doing and just wants to see himself.

The other favorite is "Jesus Loves Me". He calls it "Yes, Geez", and he does actually sing some of the words. "Yes Jesus Loves Me for the Bible tells me so" has become "Yes, Geez... Bible show". I love it.

He has also started praying. Usually, he begins praying while strapped into his chair waiting for dinner to be given to him. He knows that we always pray before we eat, so he must be trying to speed things up by beginning the prayer on his own. He bows his head and mutters to himself, sometimes offering up names of loved ones, usually just Grampa and Grampy, and he ends with a loud "Amen!" If the food hasn't appeared when he opens his eyes, he'll bow his head and try again.

It isn't just at meal time that I find him praying. Sometimes during his playtime, I'll notice a change in his stance and a lowered tone to his voice. He always seems to pray for Grampa and Grampy, and then he ends with a softer "amen", as if he's really just wrapping up the little chat he was having with God and that this little prayer time didn't require a response from anyone but our Creator. It is my hope and prayer that he will always communicate with God on his own, without any outside influence or expectation requiring it of him. Of course, we want to model prayer and its benefits in our own lives, but I hope that it genuinely transfers in his life to be something he can depend on to guide him through out his life.