The girls love animals. They get so excited to see cats, dogs, birds, and squirrels in the neighborhood. And all their favorite books are animal-themed. We read what seems like 100 animal books every day. The girls love to look at the pictures and make the accompanying baby sign.
On what should be a separate note, the girls are long-standing fans of fruits and vegetables, as well as eggs and cheese. Over the past couple of months, I have also incorporated one serving of meat a day into their diet.
I was caught a little off guard a week or so ago when I was bringing the girls’ supper to the table. “First, we’re going to have chicken,” I said in as scrumptiously tempting of a voice as possible. Baby A commenced to flapping her “wings” and nodding her head. “Yes, chicken!” I encouraged her, but with a silent feeling of dread.
How long before the girls put two and two together?
Will they be horrified to realize that Mommy has baked the fluffy little chicken from the sweet farm story and served it to them in bite-size pieces? Will their protein intake eventually narrow to meatballs, which I will cleverly describe as originating from the meatball tree, should they ask?
Or maybe I’m jumping ahead of myself.
I know I was at least three when I am storied to have asked my mom what they did with the chickens after they cut their legs off (since drumsticks were a childhood favorite of mine). She told me they went to a special farm for handicapped animals.
I don’t know how old I was when I learned there really wasn’t such a farm. But judging from my non-vegan diet, I don’t guess I was too scarred by the realization...
Ticker
6 comments:
Maybe they will shake it off like my 3 year old did. When she caught me preparing the Thanksgiving turkey she was horrified and said eating it would be disgusting. Later, I saw her sneaking a bite. When I asked her about it, she said, "Well, it is disgusting, but it's also delicious." It is one of my favorite quotes from her.
LOL!!! I love what your mom said about the farm for handicapped animals! CLEVER!
Oh God - my son says 'kokoko' (kok-a-doodle-doo in his language) every time I say 'we are having chicken.' He still does not make the distinction between a hen and rooster, although I don't know how he equated the two - I mean I teach him that a chicken says bok-bok-bok and a rooster says kok-a-doodle-doo. I think he looks at the birds in the farm behind our house and in their natural habitat (vs. a picture book) they look the same to him.
The meatball tree...very nice.
It's things like this that make me think twice about making chicken noises when I serve chicken!
hahahaha. i wonder when they will put it all together. maybe you could say that you are eating the chickens that already died?? hmmmm....
I think my kids have already put it together. My sister used the Bengali animal words for food and the English ones for the animal. She was six or seven before realization struck. Her horror lasted until she got hungry.
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