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.