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.