I'm Laughing....

Last night for dinner I made shrimp. I made this especially for my 5yo, who LOVES shrimp and always asks me to make it.

We had enjoyed a pleasant dinner together and the other 5 children had already been excused from the table. Little Miss 5yo was finishing her second huge helping of shrimp and asked me to get her more ["thirds"].

I got up and started putting more shrimp on her plate. She comes over to stand next to me at the stove and says "Thank you Mommy! I LOVE shrimp! Shrimp is my favorite food! Because it is SOOOO Yummy!". I smile and say "Good! I'm glad!".

She gets quiet for a minute, very thoughtful suddenly, and then asks me "Mommy, is shrimp an animal?"

[Now, I must admit that briefly I considered saying "NO, shrimp are really like sea bugs - kind of like the cockroaches of the ocean". Which would have been completely true. But I felt it would be prudent NOT to share that fact at this particular moment... .]

So I replied "Well, yes."

Her eyes got as big as saucers and she said, in a completely horrified voice: "Oh...no! Is it really?! I'll never eat shrimp again!"

And I just had to laugh. She left her plate [of "thirds"] untouched and ran off to tell her older sister, the 7yo [animal rights activist], that shrimp are really animals and that they could no longer eat shrimp.

.....

However, I must note - she did come back and pick at that plate later anyway - all the "animals" were gone from the plate by bedtime!

LOL!
.