Are you gonna eat that???

With another long weekend under our belt we all started the week well rested and feeling very accomplished. We are now on week 3 of keeping the house in a ‘company ready’ state and I must admit that it is really not taking that much effort. Tarzan and I had a ‘melt down’ free weekend and actually enjoyed A LOT of quality family time at home. By Sunday at 5pm all the hampers in the house were empty, clothes were put away, 2 meals were cooked, and we had enjoyed 2 movie nights.

This past month we also instituted meals all together at the big table, I think this is my favorite thing that we have changed. I think it helps him to see the both of as an example of what we expect from him, and I love watching Cheetah develop his own eating habits. He will eat any sandwich as long as it has no ‘salad’ on it and plenty of honey mustard, he likes to dip his apples in honey mustard and ketchup, and no tortilla chip is complete without a dip into the sour cream; just to point out a few. There is just one little habit that worries me. While we are eating he likes to discuss what we are eating, exactly. For instance if we are eating chicken and sausage over rice we have to discuss what a chicken looks like, what exact piece of it we are eating, and what makes up sausage. I love this, I think it is very important to be aware of what you are putting in your body but when we are at restaurants we are being scoffed at. As I have mentioned before my child is very ‘exuberant’ and he speaks very loudly; I am beginning to think that some people are being made uncomfortable listening to my child’s questions while they bite into ole Bessie the cow. I don’t think it help’s much that he likes to name the meat and go over what noises they make. Every place we leave I am pretty sure we leave a few new vegetarians in our wake.

Animal eating habits have also become a serious topic of discussion, and now zoos are a place we may be kicked out of in the not so distant future. I think him being an only child leaves him loads of extra time to think of things. He wants to know what everything eats; bugs, cats, dogs, wolves, bears, sharks, lions…you get the picture. At each animal we come to he runs his finger over the brail name while I read the marker followed by him asking, “and what does Mufasa (he names the animals too) eat for suppers?” I inform him of some of the animals that they dine on and he retorts with some wildly imaginative story of how he catches and eats the animal. It’s like listening to Elmo on a Discovery Channel show. Mostly parents laugh but some are appalled by his knowledge of the circle of life and that sometimes animals eat people. Am I giving him too much information at his age? I will say that the look on the faces of the staff as my child says, “I bet that pig would make a yummy hot dog” is worth every question he has ever asked me about food and where it comes from.