The One About When I Started Laughing Hysterically During Bedtime Prayers

Every night before bed, we all gather to say the bedtime prayer (which I prefer to keep in the family) together.  We start out with the same prayer, and then break off and take turns saying our own individual prayers.  Except that posed a problem, because it would cause "It's MY turn!" arguments.  So I quickly fixed that by declaring, "When you're finished saying your own prayers, say 'NEXT'."  Problem solved.

We used to all sit in oldest daughter's bedroom and pray together... but her room is such a complete mess that during the prayers, at least 1-2 of the children would end up off in lala land, playing and fidgeting with whatever toy was closest to them, which would lead to complete oblivion when it was their turn to say a prayer while the rest of us would sit and stare at that child, which would lead to me or the big guy saying, "Child, please pay attention" which would, ironically, take even more attention away from the prayers.

So after several nights of this, I finally said to myself, "Self, what can we do to change this and bring more focus into prayer-time?"  And then my self answered me, and the next night, we tried something new.

When it came time for prayers, everyone wandered into oldest daughter's bedroom, and I stayed in the hall and said, "Everyone, come on out here."  And I plopped down onto the hallway floor and they all looked down at me with confused expressions, so I explained, "We're going to try something new tonight."  And they all joined me, on the floor, in a circle, in the hallway.

We have been praying like that ever since.  There are no distractions, no toys, no radio, tv, clocks.  We are all in such a tight and confined space there is nothing to focus on but each other.  It works.  Except for the baby.  She sits in the middle of all of us and waves her arms around and chirps and grunts.

So anyways, tonight, we said the bedtime prayer, and then, when everyone broke off into their own prayers, I was the one having a problem taking this seriously.

It started when oldest daughter was listing off her prayers of, "Please help me have a good day at school tomorrow... and please don't let my brother cry at school... and please help the baby not choke on anything... and please don't ever let me get punched in the face..."

...and that's where my problems started.

I was doing well hiding it, I had my head in my hands, trying hard not to let them see that I was laughing, and just trying to make it look like I was praying really, really hard....

... until the youngest son got to his prayers.  His were, "Please help the baby to not find little things on the floor to choke on, and please help mom and the baby get a good night of sleep, and please help the dog to stop drinking out of the toilet."

And that's when I lost control and started laughing out loud, tears and all.
Which caused oldest son to laugh.
Which caused the big guy to laugh.
It was anarchy.

And there you go.  There is my little story about how our prayers go at night.








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