it's a hamster

Nate is extremely verbal. He has no inner monologue - he says aloud everything that's in his head.

As he's running to the kitchen, "I wanna tell Daddy, 'It's a chip!'"
He arrives in the kitchen, "Daddy! It's a chip!"

He has a great vocabulary. He even knows the names of some things in English and Swahili, though he isn't completely bilingual.

He mispronounces some things cutely, such as yo-yurk for yogurt.

But sometimes, he just calls things by the wrong name. Some are understandable, but some, I have no idea.

Any big truck is a "choo-choo."
He has a toy monster truck that he calls "helicopter." In other cases, he properly identifies truck vs. helicopter, but this particular truck is a helicopter.
Anything with a screen, though it may be a TV, is a "'puter."
The tag in his shirt is a "ticket."
Most birds are "penguins."
My emery board is a "hamster."

learning to pray

As Nate learns to pray, we are focusing on thanksgiving. My thoughts on this are that I don't want his introduction to prayer to be asking God for things, but also thanks is a simple aspect of prayer for him to understand.

I adore Nate's prayers. I have never told him what to pray. Rather, I pray thanks for various aspects of our day and our lives, then I tell him he can have a turn, too. He prays whatever he wants. Sometimes he prays things that are very sweet. Sometimes he prays things that an adult would never thank God for (but might be thinking!).

Occasionally, I write Nate's prayers down in my prayer journal. They are things I want to remember in years to come, but there is no space for this in his baby book.

Tonight, Nate prayed:

Thank you, Jesus, I had fun playing in the dirt. Thank you for Daddy, and for Ben, and for Nate, and for Mama, and for poop, and for chocolate, and for Don and the [con]ductor [characters from Dinosaur Train]. Amen.