7YO: Guess who?
ME: Who?
7YO: Chicken poo!
5YO: Daddy, guess what?
ME: What?
5YO: Chicken pee!
ME: I don’t think that….
5YO: Guess who!?
ME: Who?
5YO: Chicken glasses!
ME: I’m not playing this anymore.
7YO: One more! Guess what?
ME: Ok, one more. What?
7YO: Chicken butt!
ME: Ok.
5YO: A–S–S stands for butt.
MOM: Let’s not repeat that anywhere.
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Despite slicing up the fictional chicken, my children have decided to become vegetarians. I think my oldest is doing this largely out of a big heart and deep love for animals. When she was two or three she wanted to be a mimic octopus for Halloween. She asked for plastic snakes and Wild Kratts figures for one Christmas. I think she’s been thinking about where and how we get meat and we’ve always been honest about answering these questions.
I’ll support her, but she’s young and we’ll see if she continues with it. She’s not the biggest vegetable fan, but she does like chocolate chip cookies and sides (she’s not interested in veganism). She asked about eggs, and is okay with eating them. Since her decision, she’s also been eating peas, Brussels sprouts, and other stuff she would normally complain about. She said, “It tastes like freedom!”
The youngest, well, I don’t know. She has mostly eaten vegetables and fruit on her own. On a vegetarian venture she ate a big plate of cantaloupe with a dab of mac ‘n’ cheese on the side. That’s normal for her.
They decided that once a year we will have chicken wings and I will make them biscuits and gravy. One of the few recipes I learned while watching someone cook was watching Meemaw make gravy. I never learned her biscuit recipe, so I need to learn a good one.
Stephen McClurg 