I'm praying!

I would tweet this but it's too long to tweet and give the full effect of the story so it's coming on here.

We gave Charlotte a Color Wonder set for a big sister present when James was born.  If you don't know, this is a set of markers and special coloring books.  The markers only show up on the coloring book pages so they can't make a mess with markers all over the house.  Charlotte hadn't been playing with it much but about two weeks ago she rediscovered it in a drawer and has been drawing with them pretty consistently.

She can get the lids off of the markers and back on (if she tries) but has been putting the marker lids on the ends of her colored pencils and walking around using them as a microphone of sorts.  This morning she was putting multiple lids on multiple colored pencils and and lids were falling off every few seconds and rolling all over the floor.

Like, I can only hope, most any mother of a toddler, this began to get on my nerves the longer she did it.  So I said, "Charlotte, put your marker lids back on your markers.  Your markers are going to dry out.  You can't play with them like that."  And Charlotte responded, "I'm PRAYING!  I'm praying to GOD! Remember???"  And then she held her colored pencil/marker duo up to her mouth and said, "Thank you for James. And for him tummy time.  And for him sleeping."  And looked at me, "See, I'm praying to God! Remember??"

At that point I realized my battle was lost.  I'll just have to pick up the marker lids once she goes to sleep.  Because, while I don't know what the connection is to holding a colored pencil and a marker to pray, apparently she thinks they go together this morning and I'm not going to be the one standing in the middle of her relationship with God!