Thursday, October 29, 2009

Cuter than a speeding bullet...

My little superhero this morning, on his way to his first school Halloween party:


My precious little angel. I miss him already - wish I were home snuggling with him.

So, last night, as I mentioned, I stopped off at the local Catholic store to purchase a pair of children's rosary beads for my precious Catholic child. They had a couple pairs of the same set, which were cute, but larger than I anticipated. They look similar to these except huger and with white flowers painted on each bead. They were guaranteed non-toxic, so I think they were designed for drooling babies to suck on. They were just...so big. I looked at a few other corded rosaries (the cord is the key here; those little chain links don't do well with toddlers/preschoolers), but finally decided on the official children's model - each decade contained beads of bright colors, and Henry is really into his colors right now. I knew he would love them, so I bought them. They were under $10.

Naturally, me being me, I couldn't resist browsing a bit. I gravitated to the children's book section and pawed through the St. Joseph Picture Books. I think everyone raised Catholic has seen these things - they're thin little paperback filled with old fashioned illustrations and solid, traditional Catholic teaching. Their solemnity can instill a bit of a giggle here and there, but overall I love these books. There are seriously like 100 different books in this series. Henry already owns The Holy Rosary and My First Prayer Book. I looked through quite a few of them; at only $1.25 each, I felt I could splurge :) I ended up choosing My First Catechism and The Sacramentals of the Church. I figured we could add the Catechism to his nightly Bible stories. What I liked about the sacramentals book is that it talks about a bunch of things he's expressed interest in, like lighting candles, ashes, palms, blessing of the throats on St. Blaise's feast day, etc.

So, I brought them home and Henry quickly discovered them. He *loves* the rosary; he carried it around the house with him and kept touching the beads in amazement. He noticed right away that the simple wooden cross was missing Jesus' body, and asked "Where's God?" Oh my gosh, don't you just love him?!

About a half hour before bed, he asked if we could "say" our rosaries. I brought a pair of mine down and showed him the mysteries in his little rosary book. He selected the Luminous Mysteries, so we agreed to meditate upon Jesus' baptism. He leapt from decade to decade wily nily based solely upon bead color, but overall he did a *fabulous* job. He's learning the Our Father, so we said that together. But when it came to the Haily Mary, we seriously had a prayer group style rosary going - I'd say one part, and he'd jump right in with the other.

I enjoyed it so, so much. I think we're going to do a Feast of All Saints thing on Sunday, and we'll start delving into his new books at bedtime.

When he went to bed, we tucked his new beads into his "chooch" book drawer - a drawer in our end table where he keeps his St. Joseph board books and the new picture books. Not sure how all the religious books ended up in that one spot, but it works. He put his beads in there and I put mine next to them - so our rosaries are resting comfortably until tonight :) My precious little dumpling...

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