precious.

some words are so pretty coming from a child's lips. ossi is the king of pretty words.

"mom, is that precious to you?"

"mom, i'm so precious to you, right?"

"we have harmony now, huh?"

"mom, i have passion."

unfortunately, he's also very adept in his use of ugly words."i hate you. you'll never be beautiful. you're an idiot. you're not my mom anymore. i don't love you."

i hesitate to share this, knowing that he is growing and changing each day, and hoping to fully forgive.

things are better since making huge changes to his diet, but he still needs much guidance.

plus, we have three other children with unique challenges and personalities.

at times it can be overwhelming to consider our responsibilities as parents.

as matthew and i kneel in prayer together and counsel with one another about the needs of our children we are blessed with peace. we know what to do. usually we feel a resounding, "stay the course." keep praying as a family. keep teaching them from the scriptures. don't lose hope.

so every night we gather our monkey-children around to read and pray. and then sometimes we wrestle.  matthew strikes a deal... if anyone can pin him they'll get to stay up all night and he'll go straight to bed. it looks like this...


i refuse to take a single day for granted.

every evening's bedtime routine has become precious to me. i don't ever want to forget.