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.