There are moments in parenting when everything is beautifully planned, and then there are the far more familiar ones, where you are halfway out the door, baby in arms, and suddenly realize that something important has been left behind. In this case, it was a rosary.
What followed, however, was not frustration, but something infinitely sweeter. Holding her baby as she headed out, one mother, Laika P. Ordonez, shared on Instagram, “forgot my Rosary, so Toesary it is,” gently using her baby Xavi's tiny toes as beads.
It is, quite simply, toetally adorable !
Ordonez explained to Aleteia:
It's just funny because I've been struggling with my life of prayer lately. A friend told me to just go back to the Rosary and ask Mama Mary to help me find my way back.
Struggling because of the new baby of course ... so that same day I decided, okay today's the day I go back to my daily Rosary, I forgot my Rosary but how sweet Our Lady is because the "cause" of my straying from my life of prayer is what brought me back.
The baby, which was a "distraction" from my life of prayer became my means of prayer.
The busy mom pointed out another intersting fact: Little Xavi was born on October 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary so he's already on a mission!
The changing shape of prayer
For many parents this feeling of distraction and being overwhelmed with life feels rather familiar. Because prayer, once children arrive, rarely looks as it used to. The quiet moments are shorter, the stillness more elusive, and everything tends to happen on the move, between feeds, walks, and the general unpredictability of small humans. But perhaps it simply changes shape.
The Rosary has always been a tactile prayer, something held, something counted, something that draws the body gently into its rhythm. In this case, the rhythm is no less real, only a little smaller, a little softer, maybe ticklish, and perhaps, in its own way, even more tender.
There is something rather lovely, too, about the timing of this post. As the month of May approaches, when so many turn their hearts in a particular way to Mary, this small, improvised “toesary” feels quietly fitting. It is the kind of prayer that slips easily into daily life, and, quite practically, the kind that suits a season when babies are more often carried out into the warmth, their tiny feet uncovered and ready, it seems, to play their part.
It also gently reminds us that prayer does not disappear when life becomes busy, it simply finds its way into the moments that are already there. A walk becomes a decade, a cuddle becomes a prayer, and, in this case, a set of tiny toes becomes something unexpectedly sacred.
It also takes away that quiet pressure to get things exactly right. Because if prayer can happen like this, mid-walk, slightly improvised, gently held together with humour and love, then perhaps it was never meant to be perfect in the first place.
Parents have always known this, even if they don’t always say it. That faith, like everything else, is lived in the middle of things, in the noise, the tenderness, the small, repeated gestures that shape a day. And if, every now and then, it comes with a smile, then all the better.
After all, a “toesary” may not be traditional, but it might just be the kind of rosary that answers all the right prayers.
