Mealtime with twins is generally entertaining. If they’re not demonstrating how saliva aids the digestive process, they’re partaking in accidental slapstick by falling off chairs mid-story.
Last night, though, it was a conversation in two parts that garnered my attention.
Part One
Setting: Before dinner. I have just announced we’re having hamburgers for dinner. William and Vivian are in the living room building a pirate ship out of Lego.
William (to Vivian): Do you know burgers are made out of dead cow?
Vivian: Really?
William: Ya. They are.
Vivian: Mom, is William right?
Me: Yes.
William: Mom, what’s bacon made of?
Me: Dead pig.
Part Two
Setting: At the dinner table. Most of the food has been consumed.
My husband (to William): Do you want the rest of your burger?
William: No.
Me (to Vivian):
I pause, thinking that I have pushed that envelope too far, that my attempt to be funny will drive my kids to declare themselves to be vegetarians.
Fortunately, William laughs, Vivian smiles. They get the joke.
Vivian: No dead cow for me, Mom…but when can we have dead pig for dinner?
I laugh, until my husband responds.
My husband: We’ll have dead pig for dinner soon enough. After we have chicken embryos.
And then I laugh harder.
This could be the dinner conversation that may actually send PETA to my front door.
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It’s Whiteboard Wednesday, so I ask:
What bizarre things have you heard or said this week?
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And don’t forget to head over to StuffKidsWrite.com. You know you want to.
Had that dead cow been hung for 21 days? If you know what I mean…
Okay, every reply I attempt to type, well, um, ya.
I always thought watching Veggie Tales when my kid was younger would turn him off eating vegetables. Turns out, fried foods did the job for me.
Can we have dinner at your house? It sounds like it’ll be dinner AND a show. The classy, hilarious kind I mean. Ahem.
Come for dinner! It’s just a wee jaunt from the ‘see.
I can hardly wait for my 5 days there in 8 days….I love that humour!
You and me both, Mom! I inherited that humour. 🙂
Watch out for PETA…they’re scary and out of control!
Love the “chicken embryo” comment…
Wendy
DH went on about roe, too, after embryos. Yup. It’s the fun-house chez us.
Seems like our dinner conversations of late are steeped in similar themes of where food comes from. In the past week, I’ve heard myself saying to my four year old daughter; “Yes, I suppose you could catch and cook and eat a squirrel”, and “That’s right, honey, we don’t eat other people.” Great entertainment for the grown-ups.
And I shall fess up that I discovered your site while skimming through the Queen’s Alumni mag (which, to be honest, I rarely peek at). Glad I did read that issue, as your dose of down-right hilarious, well-written, in the trenches storytelling and musing has been the antidote that myself and several mom friends have needed; moms who have become a little tired of feeling bad that there kids aren’t eating homemade granola in hand-knit sweater gazing out at their beautiful farm property while looking on as their beloved cat gives birth, all before 8am. (Don’t get me wrong, Soulemama inspires many in her earnest, expressive ways). But damn, it feels good to laugh at the hard and silly and tender stuff. So thank you! We shall read on.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Krista. And for flipping through the Alumni Review (I usually play a scavenger hunt with it: spot a name I know).
And you’re “we don’t eat other people” comment made me laugh. I agree. Unless I’m in a plane crash in the Arctic.
Happy day!
did you mention that they likely had dead vegetables on their dead cow? And that mommy drinks dead grapes?
Dear Page: Please pass me some dead grapes. Of the red variety…
As a recent consumer of a full lobster, you know how I feel about eating yummy animals. I also ate gator last week. I wonder what PETA’s policy is on that. And I won’t even tell you what I fed those gators.
Now I’m curious. What is gator food? Kidneys? Hearts? Children who don’t listen to their parents? At least it wasn’t your foot or your videographer’s…
We are vegetarians here, and one day Flora asked what ham was. I told her it was a dead pig, and she totally didn’t believe me.
Flora’s pretty clever, actually. I’d go around in denial myself, if I didn’t have to cook.
My sons sometimes won’t eat something unless it has some sort of creative animal in it. We eat shark nuggets, fish intestines, and pig ears. (chicken, noodles, and bacon.) Other mothers may call this lying. I call it nourishment.
You are a one-woman marketing department. I might try that. I frequently turn the floor in their bedroom into shark infested waters to keep them in bed, but I’ve never tried the food angle. Wise woman, you.
Dickie told me that my sis-in-law has better noodles than I do… *fail*
Hilarious. I can relate. My son told me that my neighbour makes better grilled cheese than I do (because I don’t fry mine). Sigh.
oh I can’t wait to have these conversations with my twins, right now they think Spaghetti O’s are “RED MAC & CHEESE” so we’re not evolved yet. However, when we do I’ll be channeling you. 🙂
Is that really where hamburger comes from? Dead cow? I guess you’re more honest with your kids than my parents were.
Your family is great! You would fit right in for dinner at our house. We’ve been known to moo when people are biting in. We also torture our grown daughter that we gave her venison once when she was little and that she has eaten Bambie.
Thank God for kids, right? The Rapture can’t come any time soon – your kids have so much more to contribute!
Reminds me of when my daughter said “Baby pigs are SO cute. But bacon tastes too good not to eat it.” She will never be vegetarian.
There was also the Blood Steak meal we had recently. http://wp.me/p1jCAL-cb
Crack me up!