Meet the Meat

When you have a child, there are certain things that you know will challange you: topics, concepts, and situations that make you cringe to think about even when your child is unborn. A list of the big ones could include: sex, death, God, and Santa Claus (not necessarily in that order). In our house there is another one that, while it doesn't exactly make us cringe, we didn't know how we were going to deal with it.

Meat.

Heather and I are vegetarians. Up to this point, Cailan has also been a vegetarian. As written in the comic Get Fuzzy: "Anyone is a vegetarian if you don't give them meat." So far this hasn't been an issue to anyone in the house except Utah. We haven't really known how we would introduce the concept of meat, but knew it was coming when one day after school Cailan said, "what was that pink stuff those kids were eating?" We told him it was meat, but we knew he didn't really understand what that meant, and we didn't really go any farther. Most Americans aren't really comfortable dealing openly with the reality of where their food comes from, and I think it's safe to say that a three year old could possibly be bothered by it.

Day of the Dinosaurs

Cailan has kind of solved this situation for us. Since he is dino-crazy, and now quite capable of reading his books on his own, his dino-talk is no longer just the names of dinosaurs. His discourses include information he has gleaned from his readings and our household discussions. Not just "Dinosaur", Not even just "Siamotyrannus" , but now "Siamotyrannus is a theropod. He was found in Thailand. He is a carnivore. He is looking for meat. Is he a predator or a scavanger?" (he has now come up with a distinction between predator and scavanger - predators find their meat walking or running around and scavangers find their meat laying on the ground). Due to the section of his Dinosaurs of the World books that lists the food of each dino, Cailan has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of "meat". His toy dinos often are going around the house looking for meat (only the carnivores, of course), and he gets quite excited when I ask him what a carnivore eats. He is even comfortable with the idea that dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs.

Example 1


Here is a juxtaposition of two of Cailan's famous Lego dinosaurs. The one on the Left is an earlier "pre-meat" dilophosaurus, the one one the right now features a red lego hanging out of his "mouth". Yes, this is in fact the lego version of meat.
So far Cailan has not asked to try meat, but it will certainly come up. And now I know what to say: "Cailan, what kind of dinosaur would you like to eat?"