"Why do the cows die mommy?"

We went to the Exploratorium today after swim class and got to sit down at a desk while one of the scientist/helpers there dissected a cow’s eyeball right in front of us. It made me re-think my whole "I could eat that for $50,000" comment that I always make while watching Fear Factor when they eat bull testicles or worms or some gross animal part.

She held up the eyeball for us to see and then started cutting and describing each section as she did it and had Skyler repeat the various parts as she got down to them. "Can you say IRIS?” "Can you say VITREOUS?” “See this part here that shimmers? Lost of animals have this "tapetum lucidum" (I had to look these words up to blog!) at the back and it allows them to see well in the dark. It also makes their eyes glow when it’s dark out and you shine a light at them.” She held up the lens for him to look through and explained that they each looked upside-down now, but the brain turns the image right side up.

It was a great learning experience (a gruesome one), but Skyler’s main concern was why that cow died (and if he would die and when, and if mommy would die and when, etc.). I was very honest with him and explained that cows die lots of different ways (“tell me ALL the ways mommy”), they get very, very old, or they get sick, or they are killed so that we can eat the meat and use the skin for leather. I thought for sure he would declare himself a vegetarian after our talk but he didn't (we'll wait and see what happens next time we order a hamburger) but wanted to know everything that was dead and why. He asked about fish and if we kill them before we eat them, he asked if we kill vegetables before we eat them and he asked if we killed our Christmas tree. What about eggs? Bread? Milk? What else is dead mommy? Buildings? On and on….

Poor kid, it’s so hard for a 3 year-old to understand these concepts and I realized it even more as I had to be honest and explain all of this to him; it IS weird that we kill cows and fish and eat them. And it is very strange that someone cut down a tree (killed it) so that we could decorate it for Christmas. We got back to our house and he found a piece of Christmas tree branch on the sidewalk and asked if it was dead and if it was okay to touch it even though it was dead. Maybe next year we’ll get a live tree…. And tonight we’ll have pasta – and no meat.