The Prayers of a Toddler (or, Sometimes Things That at First Seem Silly Whip Around and Turn Deep On You)

We pray with Sophie before she goes to sleep. I taught her the simplest prayer I could think of: “Dear Jesus, thank you, I love you, amen.”

I pray after she prays, and usually start out, “Dear Jesus, thank you for this day, for the food you’ve given us to eat and the place you’ve given us to live,” and then go on from there. Eventually she memorized her prayer, and has now started using parts of mine to make things up on her own. Some of her recent variations:

• “Dear Jesus, thank you…food, milk, water, river, doggies, ahhhhm…la la la, laaaa la la…”
  
  
• “Dear Jesus, thank you…food, milk, hungry, Hungry, HUNGRY! I HUNGRY!”

And tonight, after a particularly drawn out dinner time during which I was bound and determined to make sure she got enough to eat:

• “Dear Jesus, thank you... food...I full.”