Now that Timothy is walking, he sometimes stands up in his high chair.  If he’s in his high chair and is watching a video, he’ll sometimes stand up and get this mischievous look on his face.  We feel like we’re effective parents, and so we tell him to sit down and then we pause the video until he returns to the sitting position.  Once he’s seated, we turn the video back on and then he immediately pops back up to a stand like a jack in the box (with an even more mischievous look this time).  Nice.

Standing in his high chair may sound dangerous, but he’s learning that it allows him to really extend the range of his food throwing.  At lunch, he set a new unofficial record by tossing a single diced pear 15 feet.   

Speaking of learning, Timothy picked up a good winter lesson recently.  He and I were walking on a sidewalk after a snowfall and he suddenly just stopped, turned to his right, put his arms out and leaned into the snowbank like he was leaning against a wall.  The problem is that the snowbank was soft and his little arms went right through and the boy found himself up to his face in snow.  But I brushed him off and he was fine, and he won’t be trying to high five a snowbank anytime soon.

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We had a nice Christmas – and the gift unwrapping was made more eventful by Timothy removing many of the tags from many of the presents under the tree — but it was sad not having our daughter Elisabeth with us.  She continues to enjoy her year in India ( www.elisabethinindia.blogspot.com ), and we Skyped with her as she celebrated the Holidays with four foreign exchange friends from Sweden, Brazil and the US.  I remember how hard it was for me to be away from home at Christmas during the year I spent in France during college, and I’m excited to get over to India with Catherine for Spring Break to visit Elisabeth.

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Gratitude has been a consistent theme for us on this journey with Timothy.

And one of our longest family traditions has been holding hands and saying a prayer of thanks before family dinners. 

(Author’s note: I mentioned this prayer early in the blog, but I really like this tradition and the fact that it’s not easy to get offended by this prayer) 

Anyway, the prayer is from Elisabeth’s Presbyterian preschool in New Mexico.

When we arrive at the table for family dinners, some of us may be in a hurry, or frustrated about something or crabby with each other, but joining hands and saying this prayer forces us to stop and get on the same page for a minute and be grateful.

Here it is…

Thank you, God, for rain and sun

For games we play and all our fun.

For crackers to crunch and juice to drink

Thank you, God, for everything.

Nowadays, when we are saying the prayer and are nearing the last line of the poem, Timothy pulls his hands away from ours and begins a smiley round of applause.

And that’s a really cool way to end a prayer of thanks.

Happy Holidays!

Grateful,

The Lees