Yummy Animals vs. Buried Animals

Yesterday we buried our cat Jack. We talked to the boys about death, and about how Jack would become part of the ground, and how the flower seeds we planted on top of him would gain nourishment from him.

Thankfully, we’d seen “The Lion King” in 1994, so we were prepared for discussions about the circle of life.

 

Today, I took them to Fresh World, an international market (read: not so much an American grocery store). We go there from time to time to look at the live seafood, find rare produce, or pick up other items I just can’t find at Harris Teeter.

“Sorry, we’re fresh out of guinea pig.” – sarcastic meat department workers in an other store

Today, as we walked through the meat department, I pointed out to the boys a pile of beef hearts. Miles asked if it hurt the cow to have the heart taken out. I said no, the cow was dead when the heart came out.

What follows is a summary of the next hour and a half or so’s conversation between the two of us, edited for time and clarity:

Me: The cow was dead when they took the heart out. It didn’t hurt.

Miles: Was the cow sick like our cat?

Me: No.

Miles: Was he old like our cat?

Me: No.

Miles: Than how did he die?

Me: He was killed.

Miles: What’s “killed?”

Me: Someone made him die.

Miles: How?

Me: I’m not sure. They probably hit him on the head really hard and or cut him with a knife.

Miles: He got a boo-boo and died?

Me: Yes.

Miles: And they took out his heart?

Me: Yes.

Miles: Did you take out our cat’s heart?

Me: No.

Miles: Why?

Me: Because we loved Jack and we buried him.

Miles: Did anyone love the cow?

Me: I don’t know.

Miles: Why didn’t anyone bury him?

Me: Because we don’t usually bury cows. We eat them.

Miles: Why don’t we eat cats?

Me: I don’t really know.

Miles: (asks me what a pack of pig ears are)

Me: (tells him)

Miles: How did the ears come off?

Me: Someone cut them off.

Miles: Did it hurt the pig?

Me: No, he was already dead.

(we go through how livestock dies again)

Miles: What other animal ears do we eat?

Me: I don’t know.

Miles: Do we cut off gorilla ears and eat them?

Me: No.

Miles: (runs through every other animal he can think of that has ears)

Me: No.

Miles: Why do we only eat pig ears?

Me: I don’t know.

The next hour or so was spent with him asking me whether or not we eat various animals. Cats? No. Dogs. No. Well, yes, in some places. Goats? Yes. Ducks? Yes. (Pick an animal. Any animal. We went through them all.)

Miles: Why do we eat some animals and bury some animals?

Me: I don’t really know, exactly.

Conrad (seeing a sparrow out the car window): Do we eat those birds?

Me: No.

Conrad: Why?

Me: They’re too small.

Conrad: Are cats too small?

Me: No…

Conrad: Why don’t we eat cats?

Me: We just don’t.

Miles: Because we love our cats?

Me: Yes.

Miles: Does anyone love cows?

Me: Yes.

Miles: Why do we eat cows then?

Me: (brain explodes like an android given a logical paradox)

*a few hours later*

Me: What do you guys want for dinner?

Miles: Hot dogs!

Conrad: Bacon!

 

I’d been more or less prepared to talk to the boys about death. I was even more prepared to talk to them about the death of our cat. I was prepared to talk to them about how we kill animals to eat. That the hot dog they enjoy was once a cow and pig and chicken and turkey and chipmunk and orang-utan and whatever else goes into hot dogs.

I wasn’t really prepared to grapple with the questions I have myself. Why don’t we eat this animal, but eat that animal? Why eat horses and not cows? Why do some people eat horses? Why do we have pet birds but also eat birds?

I don’t understand this myself. I figured I had a couple more years before the moral gray area of meat consumption became a topic of conversation for my kids.

I’d love to push a more plant-based diet, but since these guys cringe at any vegetable that hasn’t been rendered unrecognizable and/or deep-fried, I worry that getting an appropriate amount of nutrients into them would become impossible.

Plus, I have to agree with them: bacon and hot dogs for dinner is awesome.

Plearning

The other day we took the boys to the Tacoma Children’s Museum (my review here). I’ll admit that I went in with a bit of trepidation; I cringed at the thought of looking at museum exhibits with 1-year-old twins. If I had done some research (read: asked my wife one question), I would have known that the museum is basically a huge play place designed to stimulate sensory development and imagination.

I would have killed to go to a place like this when I was little; though I’m pessimistic as to what the policy would be regarding allowing a homicidal toddler to come in.

The boys had great fun, and as we watched them play and learn (I have dubbed it “plearning”), we actually learned a little more about where they’re at developmentally. All in all, a very good experience, and I highly recommend it if you have kids in the single-digit age range. If you want to take older kids, people will probably look at you weird. If you go and don’t have any children, please never read this blog again and drive your windowless van out of Washington.

“Are you kidding? I look like Thanos’ janitor.”

“Guys, GUYS?! They have rocks here, just like everywhere I go in the world! Sweet!”

“Malkovich Malkovich?”

Serious caption: They had these things that were literally metal rods protruding from rocks. Eye-removing and stone-age assault capabilities aside, the boys loved working on getting various objects with holes drilled in them onto said rods. It was really fascinating to watch how developed their hand/eye coordination has become, especially considering how neglectful we are when it comes to that kind of stuff.

“Guys, GUYS?! They have a sink here!”

Today’s lesson: Fire is snuggly.

“You know what my kids don’t know enough about? Opening doors. I wish they had something that could show my toddler how to access areas where he shouldn’t be.”

I believe they call this “The Battle of the Somme Experience”.

Pictured: A happy dad with his sons. Also: some sort of light-up table thing that I’m pretty sure caused some permanent eye damage.

Things Are Awesome

Been a while since I got any sort of update for the family and friends and anyone else who’s paying attention. I’ll try to keep it brief yet concise and stick to a reasonable amount of pictures.

So, yeah, the boys turned 1 on the 12th of April. One. Wow. It seems like only yesterday that we were exhausted, panicky messes questioning our ability to raise two healthy, well-adjusted boys. Wait…actually, that was yesterday, but it was also a little over a year ago.

We made it, though, 365 days of ups and downs, like ships in a stormy sea of parenthood. We’ve come a long way – all of us – from those early days, when we had no clue what we were doing and sleep was a novelty. We now consider ourselves among the parenting elite, celebrating each milestone the boys reach and waving them in people’s faces like a “Good Job!” sticker on a second grade book report.

Since last we left our heroes, they’ve started waving (sometimes grunting out possible salutations), pointing at things (that’s the finger referenced in the title), getting around almost exclusively by walking, getting down steps, running toward the street the second our backs are turned, refusing to eat, showing defiance, screaming and weeping over their mother when she’s in the room as though she’s going off to war, doing things they know are bad just to get a reaction, and often producing gross giant man turds instead of gross baby slop-shit.It’s la vida dolce, at least compared to a year ago.

Anywho, I think the most judicious way to describe the goings-on here is with pictures and the boys’ own words:

Swings are awesome.   

Pickles are awesome.

Chairs are awesome.

   

Piggyback rides are awesome.

Tupperware is awesome.

Riding toys are awesome.

Mommy’s sippy cup is awesome.

Mommy’s awesome.

Water tables are awesome.

Hiking is awesome.

Killing it at peek-a-boo is awesome.

Lawn chairs are awesome.

Rocking horses are awesome.

Tulip festivals are awesome.

   

Mega Bloks are awesome.

Sharing is awesome.

Snack cups are awesome.

Cupcakes are awesome.

Not really, no, they’re not.

Blowy balloon cage things at Wiggleworks are awesome.

So are these things.

Never mind, chairs suck.

I’m going to sit on foot stools instead. Foot stools are awesome.

Getting to wear dad’s hat is awesome.

Wrasslin’ is awesome.

Mega Blok storage bags are awesome.

Family is awesome!

Building Blocks

The boys turned one year old a couple of weeks ago.

Holy crap.

I’ve already talked about my evolution as a dad, but it’s even more startling when I look at them and see how much they’ve evolved, from gross noise-beast pupae to intelligent, walking, talking* mini-mes. Gobots to my Transformer. Micro Machines to my Hot Wheel. Tiny capsules soaking in water to my already fully-formed sponge dinosaur.

No, you’re dating YOURself.

These guys have opinions, likes and dislikes, habits, skills, and annoying individual traits.

I have been watching them grow over the last year, delighting as they told developmental roadblocks and hurdles, one by one, to suck it. Since one boy or the other usually did something new first, we’d begin watching and prodding the other to start doing that new thing. Then we’d bring up all the stuff this baby did first, and remind ourselves that we shouldn’t worry that he isn’t doing this or that yet, constantly reassuring ourselves that the boys are each where they’re supposed to be at developmentally. Confused? I am. I had always expected a much more orderly, predictable progression of development for babies.

Turns out I read the wrong guy’s baby books.

That said, I have this new perspective. See, we (Humans. Every single one.) look at growing kids like Lego sculptures, getting more and more fleshed out as each block is added.

They say God is something of a “maniac”.

There’s a quote (attributed to Michaelangelo but probably not by him) that I’ve always enjoyed which goes something like “When carving [a sculpture] I just chip away everything that doesn’t look like [the subject].”  Now that we’ve come along a bit, that’s how I see the boys; they have everything they need to become the men that they’re going to be. They each learn things when they need to learn them, and their genes are locked and loaded. The things that aren’t them – like hourly projectile vomiting and falling face-first into every [insert noun] they go by – are slowly but surely being chipped away. Assuming I don’t screw them up, they’re on course to be pretty well-rounded people.

My best unicorn impression!

Our kids might be in trouble…

*babbling incoherent nonsense**

**still more coherent than a lot of people I encounter on any given day