Witches Under the Bed

Last night my daughter had trouble falling asleep. She was afraid of witches. I soothed her and tried to help her over her fears. She's still somewhat pre-logical, at age 6, so I was able to use two contradictory arguments and have them both be fairly convincing. I told her there were no witches. And also, many of them are nice ones.

What finally made the difference was posting a sentry under the bed. We had to find just the right stuffed animal to do the job. She has a bumblebee, who could sting any bad witches. My daughter reminded me that bumblebees can only sting once. But I assured her this was a magic bumblebee who could sting as many times as necessary. So that was OK. And she went to sleep.

Religion Junior

My six-year-old daughter was talking religion with me the other day. She feels sad about the death of my grandmother, whom she knew. My grandmother's death a couple of years ago was my daughter's first and only experience with death. She would like to be able to bring her great-grandmother back to life. And then it got interesting.

She got to wondering whether this was something Santa could do, given that he's magic. Then she was wondering if it was something God could do for her. Then she got to wondering if maybe Santa could talk to God on her behalf, because she figures they probably know each other. The more she got to thinking about it, the more this made sense to her, because Santa delivers presents to all the kids in the world to celebrate the birth of Jesus. So that must mean he believes in God. And maybe that means that the way he figures out if kids are good is to figure out if they believe in God. It was an interesting train of thought.