Who needs a teddy bear?

Not my kid! He is cuddling his basketball!

Rychen P. is growing up so much! Today at church he went to nursery all by himself, and stayed the whole time without crying for either of us!! (for the past 2 months, one of us would go in with him for the first hour, and then he'd either come with us to class or go to Grandma's sacrament meeting.) But this week we've been praying for him to feel safe without us, and on the way to church we had a talk about how we were going to "Sing songs, say prayers, eat the little bread and little water, then go to nursery and play with the kids, and say Goodbye Mommy." And what do you know, it worked!! I dropped him off, he ran for the bubbles and never looked back. Hooray!! No cry-it-out necessary!! Now a couple other necessary changes, then he'll really be autonomous... (maybe then he can be a big brother?)

By the way I also want to brag about how reverent he is during sacrament. We have sure come a long way, and it's taken lots of prayers and brainstorming. The 2 great lifesavers have been the picture flipbook and the little hymn book. A while ago, when we wondered how to get him to get the point of sacrament, we decided to bring some pictures of Jesus for him to "think about Jesus" during the sacrament. He looks forward to it so much because he likes to eat the "little bread and little water." Then we had some trouble with song time, so we let him use a little hymnbook from home, and wah-lah, now we can sing from ours, and he "sings" from his little one. He sits so reverently, and folds his arms for all the prayers. Then during the talks he can color or play with his alphabet letters--quietly! Hooray, we haven't had to go out into the hallway for several months. Phew! (But trust me, it was a long process. We thought we'd be hallway partakers for 15 years)