My Son, the Carnivore.

We’ve let Tai watch a few episodes of Life (which includes a substantial amount of death) and he’s now fascinated with animals eating other animals. He doesn’t care much for herbivores, except for the role they play as prey. He often wants to pretend to be lions or polar bears or komodo dragons and go hunting for meals. Poor Quynh usually gets cast in the role of unsuspecting ibex.

During breakfast one recent morning, Tai suddenly began explaining to me that “When polar bears eat fish they eat the whole thing – with eyes and fins and everything. But when we eat fish we take the eyes and other stuff off so all that’s left is..........fish.” Well said, I think.

Then yesterday when I picked him up from school, his teacher shared this gem with me. At Circle Time they were going to sing a song about spaghetti and a teacher asked, “What can we put in our spaghetti?” Tai said “duck!” One of the other kids cracked up laughing and exclaimed, “You don’t eat ducks! Ducks fly!” Tai immediately corrected the other child by explaining very matter-of-factly that you can eat duck, but first you have to take off the eyes and the feathers, and then cook it. My son, the gourmet chef.