Veggie^2

My 4 & 1/2 year old daughter informed her mom and I that she was going to be a vegetarian from now on.  That didn't really come as a shock to us as her mom is a vegetarian and we had always planned on letting her make those decisions when she felt comfortable.  By not making a big deal out of it - either way - she won't feel bad about her self if she falls of the wagon.  She wasn't so committed to this choice when she found out that meat comes from cows but rather, later on when she learned that chicken came from chickens!  True, that probably seems obvious to you and I but, 4 year olds don't necessarily think of food as derived from living and when they do make that connection, it can be kind of disturbing to them.  I think it is good, for just this reason, that one parent is a vegetarian and the other (me!), is an omnivore.  She can see that I'm not a bad person because I consume the formerly living and that her mom still loves daddy despite this choice.  I told her, "I had better not catch you eye-ballin' my chicken nuggets, fish sandwich or, my cheeseburger next time I swing by McDonald's, ha!"  She didn't seem to unsettled by that scenario yet, it's one thing to say that now and quite another when I'm eating that cheeseburger, heh heh heh...

 

But...just to underscore her commitment, she added, "Dad....I'm not going to make anymore cow jokes either."  So, since you probably will not be hearing it from her anytime soon, I thought I'd tell her favorite joke one last time:

 

Q:  "What does a cow say at the movies?"

A:  "Moo-ve over!"