DG 11

Dear God,

Thank you for making all the good things to eat that will keep us all healthy and not make us get sick or get fat.  If we ate loads of junk food and chips and cheeseburgers and fries and doughnuts and cookies and chicken nuggets and corndogs and stuff, that would be bad, and we might not feel very good and we might even get sick and puke.  It’s funny that all that not good for you stuff is all the same browny color.  Did you do that for us so that we would know what food was not good for us?  That was a pretty good idea, but it might be better if you made it all taste yucky instead, so that we wouldn’t like it so much. 

Mommy says pizza is junky too, but pizza isn’t that browny color, not all of it anyway.  The cheese and the bready bits are kind of that color I guess, but you can put lots of different things on pizza that are different colors, and the saucy bit is always very red.  It’s funny how pizza can have lots of good things like vegetables and cheese but it’s still not good for you.  Daddy likes lots of different things on his pizza all together and it gets really heavy and floppy, but I like mine with just cheese best.  Since Mommy says too much pizza’s not good for you, I sometimes give my crusty bits to Ranger. 

How come the really good for us food doesn’t taste so good?  Even things that are supposed to be yummy, like fruit, sometimes aren’t very good.  Mommy gave me some strawberries for a snack today.  I like strawberry milk and strawberry lollypops, but real strawberries don’t taste like that.  The real ones made my face scrunch up and my tongue stick out and I didn’t mean to spit it out, but when I made that face, it just kind of fell out of my mouth and it landed on the floor and made a kind of splat noise and then Ranger ate it. 

Mommy got a little bit angry, and I said I was sorry and she didn’t yell at me but I didn’t get a snack at all after that.  I was SO hungry and I couldn’t have anything at all and I had to wait until dinner and then it was meatloaf which is kind of okay but it’s not really my favorite so I ate it but it would have been cool if it was one of my favoriter dinners instead. 

Maybe you could make real strawberries taste like the lollypops, and more kids would eat them and that would be very healthy, and then it would be okay if we had pizza more.

Amen.

DG 10

Dear God,

Do you believe in magic?

I don’t mean pretend magic, like the clown with the twisty balloons at Pete’s birthday party, the one who pulled a robot out of his hat because he couldn’t spell right.  Or when Uncle Larry finds money in my ears.  I mean really real magic, like genies or talking mirrors or fairy godmothers?

Or flying reindeer?

Tonight, when we were all eating dinner, Mommy asked if I knew what I was going to ask Santa for this year.  I was going to tell her that I thought a new bike would be cool, but I hadn’t decided yet because there’s lots of other really cool things and I was thinking about a space ship for my action figures or maybe, since I’m big now, I should maybe get big kid stuff so maybe I should ask for a phone or a laptop, and I wanted to make sure that he got something nice for Ranger too, maybe a really super big bone like  the ones cartoon dogs get.  I didn’t get to tell her that though, because when she asked me about Santa, Danny started laughing and called me a baby.

Mommy told him to be quiet, but he kept going.  He said that no one could go down all those chimneys and we don’t even have a chimney so how does he even get in?  Then he said that the Tuckers down the street have a burglar alarm and if anyone tried to sneak in, the police would catch him and take him to jail. 

Mommy and Daddy got mad, but he just laughed more.  He said that if Santa has a list and only gives presents to good kids, then how come all the kids get stuff?  Does that mean that there aren't any naughty kids?  Even Danny got presents from Santa last year, and he’s always mean!

Mommy and Daddy got really mad and told Danny to go to his room.  I was very sad and Mommy and Daddy talked to me and said that Santa was really real, and that Danny was just silly and he thinks he knows lots but he doesn’t, and I should think about what I’m going to ask for.  Then they made Danny say sorry and that he made it up to be mean.

That made me feel better, I guess. 

But what if Santa isn’t really real magic?  What if he doesn’t have a really magic list and really go down chimneys?  What if he just does pretend magic tricks, like finding money in ears?  What if Danny was right and when he tries to bring toys to kids, someone thinks he’s a bad guy?

Maybe you could keep an eye on him this year?  Just in case?  After all, he’s really nice to all the kids everywhere, so we should be nice back.

And if his naughty and nice list doesn’t really work, maybe you could tell him about Danny.

Amen.

DG 9

Dear God,

Mommy was watching the news in the kitchen today and the news lady said there were bad guys robbing lots of houses in our town.  I was playing with my action figures on the table so I heard all about it.  Mommy let me borrow a wooden spoon and I put that on top of one of my big fat crayons that I don’t use any more because I like to use markers now and I put one of the action figures in the spoony bit and I hit the handle as hard as I could and the guys went flying, and one of them went really far and banged into the cabinet and then Mommy said I had to stop, and that’s when the lady started talking about robbers.

She was talking to another news man who was outside, only they don’t have to use phones because they’re TV people and they can just talk, and he said the bad guys stole from a lot of houses, and that they sneaked in while everyone was asleep, and they stole lots of stuff.  Then the outside man talked to a policeman who said he wanted everyone to help catch the bad guys, and if anyone knew anything, they should call, but I thought that was kind of lazy because the police are supposed to catch bad guys for their job, and if someone else does the work, then that’s kind of like cheating, but I guess if they only want help with this one thing, and if that means that the bad guys get caught and go to jail, then I guess that’s okay this time.

If I was a superhero like my action figure guys, I could catch the bad guys all by myself.  When I was littler, I used to have a cool super costume with a cape and a mask and everything and I wore it one year for Halloween, but I was a pirate this year and that wouldn’t make a very good superhero suit, unless maybe if I was a pirate with a mask, I could be a sort of a superhero, and I could be Captain Pirate, because lots of superheroes and lots of pirates are captains so that would be alright, and I could sneak up on the bad guys when they thought they were being the sneaky ones and I could say “Hold it right there, bad guys!” and then they would try to fight me but I’d be to quick because I have my special super Captain Pirate moves and I’d trap them all in my skull flag and tie them up and then the police could take them to jail.

Mommy and Daddy said the bad guys aren't going to sneak into our house, but I think that maybe they were just saying that and they don’t really know for sure, so I asked if it was okay if I could wear my pirate costume for jammies and Daddy did that eye rolly thing and made a puffy noise and said okay, as long as I don’t wear the pirate hook in bed, so I hid that under my pillow, because that’s not the same as wearing it and Daddy didn’t say I couldn’t so I’m not being bad.

Thank you for keeping us safe, but if bad guys do come here and I have to be Captain Pirate, could you help me with my moves?  Maybe you could put me on the end of a spoon so that I could flip really high and surprise the robbers and then I could wrap them all up before they could do anything?  That would be really cool!

Amen.

DG 8

Dear God,

How come you made it get dark so early?  Daddy said we had to change the clocks for daylight saving time, but ever since he changed all the clocks in the house, the sun goes down even sooner!  I hardly got any time to play outside at all when Mommy said I had to come in, and poor Ranger has to go to his outside bathroom when it’s cold and dark.  I wouldn’t like to go to the bathroom in the dark, but that’s because I think I might miss.  Ranger has the whole big yard, so he can’t miss, and he doesn’t have to remember to put the grass back down when he’s done. 

When it gets dark very early, I don’t get to ride my bike as much.  My friends all have to go inside too, and I don’t get to play hide and seek, even though it would be a lot funner to play hide and seek in the dark when it’s easier to hide.  I can play with my toys inside and that’s okay, but I like it better when I get to play with my friends.  Sometimes, I ask Danny if he wants to play with me, but he only likes to play his video games.  

Mommy and Daddy sometimes play with me too, but they don’t know how to do it right, like when we play with action figures, Daddy always makes the guys do the wrong thing for a joke and he won’t do it right, and Mommy doesn’t even know which ones are the good guys and which ones are evil.  Ranger likes to play, but he thinks my toys are yummy, so I have to be very super careful and when he tries to sneak a toy into the corner where he can chew on it without anyone watching, it’s up to me to stop him and sometimes I have to be serious and cross and tell him “No.”

I don’t want it to be summer all the time, because playing in leaves is fun and snow is fun too.  In the summer, we get lots and lots of sunshine, and sometimes it’s too much because its still bright even at bedtime and Mommy says she doesn’t care if it is still sunny because it’s time for bed so march, young man.  If it’s okay with you, would you mind moving the sun around so we had lots of daytime but not too much all the time and we wouldn’t have to make all the clocks different and save our daylight?

Amen.

DG7

Dear God,

Thank you for making it not rainy on my trick-or-treat.  It must be really hard keeping all the kids dry when every town does trick-or-treat on a different day. 

I was going to be a robot this year, but we couldn’t find the costume I wanted.  Daddy said he could help me make one, but sometimes when Daddy makes things, they don’t look very cool and he gets really mad when the pieces don’t go together right, and I was a little bit afraid that if he made a costume that I might look not cool but I would have to wear it anyway because Daddy worked really hard to make it and then my friends might laugh at me because my costume looks silly and the pieces are all wrong, so I told him I wanted to be a pirate instead.  

Jenny’s mommy said it would be okay if I went trick-or-treating with her because she was going out with Jenny and Ty and Doug was coming too and so was Sammi, and I asked Mommy if I could, and she called Jenny’s mommy on the phone and they talked and talked and talked and then Mommy said I could go with them, and they picked me up after dinner.  The sun was still out and it didn’t look very Halloweeny, but that’s okay because we had lots of fun.  Jenny was a witch with purple hair and glitter, and Doug was Batman only his mask wasn’t right and his cape said “Batman” on the back which was kind of weird because Batman’s cape doesn’t say anything, and Sammi was a space alien with blinking lights and a really cool mask.  Ty was a teddy bear, only he didn’t like it because he said it was too babyish and he wanted to be something cool like the rest of us big kids. 

We were only supposed to go to houses with the front light on, and it was hard to tell with some of them because it wasn’t dark yet, but most of them had lights and they all gave us tons of candy.  Before I left, Mommy told me I could only have one bit when I got home, but she didn’t say anything about what I could eat before I got back, so I had a bunch of those little chocolate bars and some candy corn and something that Mrs.  Felcher gave me that looked a little bit like a peanut and that was really, really chewy and tasted not very nice so I had to spit that one out, but it’s okay because I saw a squirrel and I think that maybe squirrels likes things that are a little bit like nuts even if they’re really, really chewy so he might take it home to his tree and stick it on a branch and then he could nibble it a little bit at a time for ages.  I got three more of those peanut things, so could you please tell that squirrel that if he wants them, he can find them in our back yard?

Amen.

DG6

Dear God,

I know I already said Good Night to you, but is it okay if we talk a little bit more? 

Mommy and Daddy went out for a date tonight because they are in love and I make a yuck face when they get all kissy, so they went out  to have a kissy dinner.  They were going to get Debbie to babysit, but Danny said he was big enough and Mommy didn’t like the idea but said it was okay and Danny got to babysit tonight. 

When they were gone, Danny said he’d let me stay up late and watch a scary movie with him if I wanted, as long as I wasn’t a baby and as long as I didn’t tell Mommy and Daddy, and I told him I’m not a baby, so we watched the movie.  It was about a monster that sneaked and grabbed a bunch of teenage big kids when they weren’t looking and the big kids got all scared and tried to run away, but they got trapped and had to try to hide, only the monster was even better at hiding and he would sneak up and grab them Danny said that he made them disappear but I think Danny was lying and the monster made the big kids dead. 

I told Danny the movie wasn’t very scary at all, but I did think the monster looked a little creepy.  The big kids were very easy to catch, and I don’t think they were very smart.  The big kids were in the woods and when they started disappearing and the other big kids that didn’t disappear yet got very scared, and they tried to run away but they couldn’t because the car was broken. That part was kind of scary, and when the girl with the flashlight almost saw the monster but not quite and she got really scared and screamed really, really loud and her face looked like she was going to cry, that part did scare me.

I didn’t want Danny to think I was a baby though, so I didn’t tell him, but I did say that I was very tired and I wanted to go to bed, and then I put on my jammies and I brushed my teeth really good and I said my first prayers and I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.  I heard Mommy and Daddy get home, and they peeked into my room, but I thought that if they knew I was still awake they would ask me why I wasn’t sleeping and I’d have to tell them about getting scared and I promised Danny I wouldn’t be a baby and I wouldn’t say anything, so I pretended I was asleep and when they went to bed I didn’t ask if I could sleep in their bed.

I’m not a baby and I know movies are pretend and that monster wasn’t a for-real monster, but when those teenage big kids got scared, it made me a little bit scared.  They were all alone though, and they didn’t have a Mommy or a Daddy or a big brother or a brave dog or even a snugly bear to protect them and make them safe, and I have all those things and that helps make me not scared and I’m kind of sleepy now so I think I’ll snuggle my bear and close my eyes.  Thanks for letting me talk to you, and please don't tell Danny I got scared because he'll think I'm a baby.

Amen. 

DG5

Dear God,


Thank you for making helicopter seeds.  They are lots of fun to play with.  Doug and I found tons of them at the park and we put a whole bunch in our pockets and then we climbed up to the top of the slide, the really big slide, not the kiddy slide, and we threw them up as high as we could and they spun all the way down.  At first, we just threw one at a time, but then we thought it would be fun to throw them all and we were right! 


We pretended they were super-spy helicopters and there were loads of secret agents flying to get the bad guy on the island in the middle of a really big puddle.  It was really just a big leaf but we said it could be the bad guy's secret base on an island that's also a volcano and his bad guy agents are monkeys.  The secret agents had to land on the island to stop the bad guy from using his weather machine to make tornados and really bad storms that break things.  It was really tricky.  Some of the spies landed in the water, but it took ages to get one to land on Leaf Island.  When we got one, we both got excited and cheered and said the spy had to stop the weather machine fast!


Then Doug slipped and fell down the slide backwards.  He didn't get hurt, but I think it might have scared him for a second, but he looked too funny and I laughed and then he laughed and then we both went on the slide backwards and it was funny but not as funny as when Doug did it not on purpose.  So then we put things on the slide to see what went fastest. 


Leaves don't work at all.  They just get stuck.  Sticks sometimes worked okay, and the little pieces went faster, but rocks worked best.  We took turns to see who could make a rock go furthest, and it was pretty close but Doug had one that rolled really far and that was the best and I then I had to go home so I didn't get to win, but that's okay because I think it was Doug's turn to win a game.


Thank you for giving me fun friends like Doug to play with, and thanks for making fun things like leaves and sticks and rocks and spinny helicopter seeds to play with, and I don’t speak tree, but if you get the chance, could you please thank the trees for letting us play with their kids?


Amen.

DG4

Dear God,

I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you last night.  I didn’t feel very good yesterday.  I was okay at lunch, but at dinner time, I felt tired and a little shivery and I wasn’t very hungry, but Mommy made tacos and they’re my favorite so I ate some.  They made my stomach feel all funny and gurgley, but they were too yummy so I kept eating, and then I had a loud giant burp that sounded like that time Danny drank a whole big bottle of soda real quick just so he could burp Mary Had a Little Lamb, only mine wasn’t funny like that and it scared me and made my belly feel weird.   

I got up to go to the bathroom, only I wasn’t fast enough because when I stood up, I got sick, and it got on the floor and on my chair and even on Danny, only that’s not so bad, because Danny’s mean to me sometimes, so it serves him right, but it still made me really upset that I puked and I started to cry.

Mommy told me it was alright and went to get some towels.  Daddy gave me a big hug and said it was okay.  Then he cleaned my face with a napkin and started to wipe the puke off my shoe when I got sick again and I puked on his arm and there were bits of taco shell and hamburger and it was really, really gross.  Daddy got surprised and he fell down on his butt and sat in more puke, and I thought he’d get really, really mad at me and that made me cry again. 

But he didn’t yell or anything.  He asked Mommy for one of the towels and told me to go to the bathroom in case I get sick again.  Mommy came with me in case I needed help or a hug.  Daddy got changed, and when he came back to the table, Ranger had the floor all clean and was working on my chair.  Ranger’s a really good helper!

I didn’t get sick any more, but my belly was sore and I felt really tired, and Mommy took my temperature and didn’t say I was fine, so that meant I wasn’t, and she snuggled with me on the couch and we watched TV and then I woke up in my bed so I didn’t get the chance to talk to you.

I felt better today, but Mommy and Daddy said I still had to take it easy, so I got to curl up on the couch, sometimes with Mommy and sometimes with Ranger, and I watched cartoons all morning and then I had some toast for lunch, and after that Mommy said it was okay to play with my toys if I was gentle, so I played with my Lego and made a secret hideout for bad guys and made up a superhero called Stretchy Arms Man who has stretchy arms and can catch bad guys from far away and Stretchy Arms Man got all the bad guys and put them in jail, so I had to make a jail too.

I’m glad I didn’t stay sick for very long, but if you have to make me sick again, can you please not do it on taco night?

Amen.

DG3

Dear God,

I know you have to make it rain sometimes to make the flowers grow and to keep the ocean full, but today you made it rain a whole lot, and I couldn't go outside, so I got a little bit bored. 

I went to Danny’s room to ask him if he wanted to play with me, but he was busy shooting guys in his video game, only it wasn’t really like they were dead because they just fell over and disappeared, and that’s not what it was like when Grandad died, but Danny blasted lots and lots of bad guys and that would be a lot of funerals for a video game, so they just disappeared. 

Danny let me watch him play for a while, and I asked him if he thought all those video game guys went to heaven when they died or if there was a special video game heaven, and if they disappeared out of heaven when he went back to replay a level, or if those were different guys who looked the very same and when they get blasted, they go to heaven too and they see the other guys that look just the same and they can be like brothers which would be kind of nice, and then Danny said that I was being stupid and he made me leave his room.

Ranger had to go outside a few times because that’s where we keep his bathroom, and every time he came back in he was really, really wet, and when he came in after it was raining really hard, Mommy said he was too wet and smelly to stay in, but it was still raining very hard and it was too wet to make him stay outside, so Mommy said it was okay for him to come in but I had to dry him off first, and I did a really good job.  Ranger's pretty big and it was kind of hard, and it took three great big towels.  I was going to use the fluffy ones that Mommy never takes out, but she said I can't use the good towels and made me use the old ones Daddy uses to clean up after he’s done painting or making stuff in the basement. 

Ranger was really good and he held still the whole time for me, but Daddy still got mad because when I was done, Ranger and I were going to watch TV together and he hopped up on the couch, and he wasn’t super dry because I just used towels and they don’t always make things all the way dry, and even though he was mostly dry, he was still a little bit not dry, so the cushions got a little bit not quite dry too.  Daddy got mad and called Ranger a bad dog, even though he wasn’t really bad, just a little wet.

So if it’s okay, could you please make it not rain tomorrow?  If the plants are still thirsty, I can water them for you.  There's a great big watering can in the shed that I can use all by myself, and if I need to water lots, I can ask Mommy or Daddy if it's okay for me to use the garden hose.  That way, the flowers can still drink, and I can play, and Ranger won’t get in trouble.

Amen.

DG 2

Dear God,

Thank you for the fun, sunny day.  I played in the park with Doug and Jenny and Jenny’s little brother Ty and Jenny’s and Ty’s cousin Frank that I didn’t know until today because he lives far away.  We played on the swings and then we played tag but it wasn’t really fair because Frank is lots older than the rest of us and he was too fast. 

Ty was the littlest and he got really mad and he called Frank a bunch of bad words that I’m not supposed to say and when he ran out, he mixed them all up and made up a bunch of bigger words and called Frank those words and Frank was mad but he didn’t yell.  He laughed at Ty and teased him and Doug tried to get him to stop and then Frank yelled at Doug and said some bad words too, and Frank and Doug were yelling, and then they were pushing, and Ty got even madder and punched Frank and when that didn’t work, he head-butted him in his down-there.  Then Frank got really mad and Ty ran away and went home and Frank ran after him so Ty wouldn’t get him in trouble.  I think Doug was worried about getting in trouble too, because he went home then, but he was just trying to look out for littler kids and he didn’t do anything wrong.

I was really surprised that Ty knew all those words because he’s only four and that’s a lot of words for a kid who’s four.  I guess he heard them from his daddy, because daddies sometimes say bad words like that and kids are supposed to pretend they didn’t, and if the kids don’t pretend, they get in trouble.   One time, my Daddy got mad watching basketball and said one of those words, and I just kept coloring, but Danny laughed and then Daddy got really mad and yelled a lot and Danny couldn’t play with his video games for a whole week.

Mrs. Taylor says that you can see everything and you always know when someone does something bad, so you already know that Ty said bad words and Frank was mean so I’m not being a tattletale.    She says that you look out for good kids too, and when Frank and Ty and even Doug had to go because of the fighting, Jenny and I got to stay in the playground, and that’s okay even if she is a girl because she’s fun to play with, and when the ice cream truck came, Jenny had money that her mommy gave her to buy ice cream for her brother and her cousin, so we both had super big swirly ice cream cones, so I think Mrs. Taylor was right so thank you for the sunny day and the ice cream.

And, don’t tell her anything, but thanks for Jenny, too.

Amen

DG 1

Dear God,

Please bless Mommy and Daddy and Danny and Ranger and Granny Boo and Uncle Larry and Auntie Susie and Auntie Gemma and everyone else Mommy says I’m supposed to ask you to bless, but I know you get really busy with people asking for things and making rain and stuff, so if you don’t have time to look after everyone, I don’t mind if you have to skip Danny.

I told Mommy that I didn’t want to get you to bless Danny because he’s mean to me and won’t let me play with his video games and he smells. Mommy got mad and said he doesn’t smell, but he really, really does.  A lot.  He’s got stinky feet that smell like that party cheese with the squiggly lines that Daddy likes, and he farts all the time.  Sometimes, when he has a really big stinky fart, he sits on my head and squishes me under his great big, ugly butt and farts right in my nose, and I get squished and stinked and when I tell Mommy, she just tells him not to and he does it anyway. 

Ranger’s kind of smelly too, especially when he gets wet, but he’s a dog so he’s supposed to be a little bit stinky.  He’s kind of noisy sometimes like when he sees strangers or when he hears a car or when the ad with the hippo song comes on the TV, and he gets up on the furniture even when he’s not supposed to because he makes the sofa all hairy and Daddy’s allergic and it makes him sneeze and talk all funny, but Ranger’s not mean to me and I love him lots so I still want you to look after him. 

Maybe if Danny was an Irish Settler like Ranger, he’d be nice to me too, and instead of chasing me and being mean, he could chase me and play and be nice, and I could feed him my Brussels sprouts when Mommy wasn’t looking, and it would be okay if they make him fart because he already farts a lot, and I could have his big bedroom because he doesn’t need it anymore because he’s a dog, but I could share and let him sleep on the bed and he could keep my feet warm at night.     

So God, please turn Danny into an Irish Settler that likes to play and doesn’t have stinky feet and is nice, and then you can bless him all you want. 

Amen.