She Swears I'm a Good Mom

Today after work Vivi wanted to go see Phoebe, my parent's dog. We weren't going to see grandma and grandpa (she does like to see them, too), so I told her, "No, we need to get gas." Then from the back seat I hear every mom's nightmare: "Ass?" I just cracked up and she kept yelling "Ass! Ass!" from the backseat all the way to the gas station; I could barely contain myself. However, once I thought of all the terrible places she could repeat that word, I decided we needed to practice our G's and I haven't been able to get her to repeat "Ass" since. Whew!

While that incident didn't exactly make me feel like a bad mom because I didn't actually say the word, she does say 'Crap' whenever I say it, so I'm trying to be more careful, but it could be worse, right?

Then tonight before bed I was reminded that sometimes I do things right. As we were reading one of our nighttime stories, she looked at me and said "Prayer." Yes, my almost two-year old daughter was reminding me we needed to say prayer before bed, which is something she does very often. Almost every dinner time she reminds Doug and I of "Prayer!" even if we've already started eating. So, we put down our forks, all hold hands, and say a prayer. She starts the prayer holding our hands, but she usually grabs her cup to take a drink or takes another bite of food during the prayer, but she always regroups for 'Amen!' (which sounds like 'aeee-mum')

The during church on Sunday, she made sure Doug and I each had a hymn book for 'singing' and then put the books back for us after the song. When it was time for the opening prayer, put her hands in her lap and bowed her head (all the way to her knees...of which I'm jealous) and was quiet through the whole prayer (ok, she looked up a couple times to say 'Love you!' but I'm not counting that because it's sweet and she put her head right back down until 'aeee-mum'). She reverently (as reverently as an almost 2 year old can) took the bread and water of the sacrament, including carefully drinking every last drop of the water. I looked at Doug as all this occurred (but especially during the prayer) with tears in my eyes and thought 'We must be doing something right, right?' Church doesn't normally go this smoothly for us, but it was a peak into the fact that we may not be doing everything wrong either :)

Plus, only good moms give their children chocolate cake after they eat all their veggies...which makes them very happy.