Chicken in Your Coffee

This morning I was waiting in line at the coffee counter with my darling little girl.  She was telling me what she wanted while the woman ahead of us ordered.

"That has cow milk?  I don't eat cow milk.  Some people like cow milk.  Some people eat cow milk in their coffee, but I don't want cow milk in my coffee.  Some people eat chicken in their coffee.  I don't eat chicken.  Maybe she like likes chicken in her coffee, but not me.  I don't eat that."

Oddly, I remember going to a party before I was vegan, and I had brought some vegan cupcakes with me.  Everyone there was making jokes about what a vegan cupcake had in it, and one lady actually said, "You know, like there's no chicken in these cupcakes."

Can You Hand Me My Burger, Mama?

Oh, still chuckling at this one.

A Pita Pit franchise recently opened up here in town, and since my daughter has never had fast food, but must know from TV that fast food is burgers, she believes that this is a burger place... I guess...

The idea is that you get a pita, and then like Subway they have all these veggies and spreads and you choose what you want.  They even have a kid's menu with a "lil' hummus" wrap, which is just a hummus pita with whatever veggies she likes.  My daughter likes spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers, pineapple, and olives in hers.  We call it a pita.  I maybe called it a wrap at some point as well.

My daughter, on the other hand, says to me, "Can you hand me my burger, mama?"

Oh, my sweet sweet child.  If this is the closest she gets to a burger, I'm delighted.

Teething Tablets

I lean toward the crunchy lifestyle.  The vegan granola stereotype tends to fit nicely.  So when my baby was teething, I got him some Hyland's Teething Tablets (no longer on the recall list, it's okay).

I forget.  I forget that I have to check EVERY label, and that "natural" products are not automatically vegan, and that most homeopathic products contain lactose because they are evil voodoo.  I mean, because lactose is a preservative (HOW?!  WHY?!  It doesn't preserve milk, which spoils in a matter of hours if left out!).

Anywho, I had gotten these tablets and was giving them to my son as I read the label (that's the wrong order to do that, FYI), and I stopped and said, "What?!  There's lactose in these!"  My husband guffawed in disgust as well, and when my daughter asked for one too, because her teeth suddenly hurt as well after we gave the baby fun candies out of the bottle, and I had to tell her that they had cow milk.

This was all several months ago.  Then I found Humphrey's lactose-free teething tablets and we've been right as rain ever since (other than the four molars assauting my son currently and the canine that is looking like it can't wait it's turn).

Today, as I was giving him a teething tablet, my daughter gave me a stern look and took one out of my hand to hold directly in front of my face, "Do these have cow milk in them, Mommy?"

Thankfully, I was able to say no, because I don't know what she would have done to me if she found out I gave her baby cow milk again.

Catching Fish

Where did my daughter learn to "catch fish"?

She had a cat toy the other day that is a stick with a toy on a string, and she told me she was catching fish to eat!  I reminded her when we saw people fishing, how they were hurting the fish.  I told her how they catch the fish by putting a hook through their lip.  Ouch.  Then we caught nori and ate it because that's in the ocean too, and we love to eat nori!

Then, a couple days later, we were driving to the greenhouse for a picnic in the tropics (since there's snow and cold outside).  I told her that there were going to be pretty fish to see (there's a koi pond in the greenhouse).  Again, she said she was going to catch the fish.  I told her we don't eat fish, or catch them.  She asked if her friend eats fish... and I answered honestly that she does.

"I will catch a fish for J and she can eat it!"

Hmmm...  I talked again about how catching fish hurts them, eating an animal means it dies, and that we don't do that.  Once she saw the fish she had no interest in hurting or eating them.

I think she's working through the disconnect between her friends who eat animals and the fact that she doesn't... and why.  It's going to get a lot harder before it gets easier.

Costco Samples

Sometimes when we go to Costco it seems like the sample people don't realize that it's not appropriate to offer food to a three year old, but usually they do.  There's also the response they give when you say, "we don't eat chicken/milk/bacon."  They give you that startled look like you must be insane.

Yesterday, on the other hand, I was pleased as punch with the sample people.

The first sample we saw was for Wholy Guacamole.  We love this product and it was served with vegan chips, so we all got a sample.  We decided to buy some.

Next, we saw a cheese sample.  My kids didn't even notice it, but when she offered me a sample and I said, "I don't eat cheese," she seemed a bit confused... Oh well.

The next sample was a smoothie, which poor Violet was very excited for, but I told her it had cow milk in it and she quickly turned away.

After that we saw a chicken sample.  She asked if it had cow milk and he said, "This is chicken."  He looked to me for confirmation as to wether or not she was allowed, but she just turned and walked away without another word.  She told me after we were away from the table that she doesn't eat chicken.  Correct.

The next sample was chicken broth, so when Violet asked what it was, and the woman told her, she again walked away, but said, "I don't eat chicken."  The woman was really nice and just said, "Oh, well then you better not eat this.  It has chicken in it."

We saw a salad in the following aisle, and I read the ingredients and gave her a sample.  She loved that and said thank you.  The sample guy smiled at the little girl who was so happy to get some salad.

With that yummy salad still in our minds, and the excitement of a vegan sample behind her, she approached another table and very excitedly asked, "This have cow milk?"  It was chili with cheese.
"That has cow meat and cow milk," I told her.  The woman working the table actually looked pleased that I wasn't going to feed it to my child and said, "That's right, there is cow and cow's milk in this.  You don't want that."  Violet didn't want that, and said as much, but then I spotted a hummus sample.

"HUMMUS HUMMUS HUMMUS!!! OH YUMMY!"  It's always easy to spot the vegan kid at Costco.

Stupid Cow Milk!

My sweet little angel uses "cow milk" as her little three-year-old version of a swear word.

Since starting preschool, she has picked up the word, "stupid," which I explained is a bad word that is not nice.  As a result, her new swear word, for when she is most upset or something is most offensive:

"Stupid cow milk!"

I asked her why she would say that when I told her "stupid" is a bad word, and she responded that cow milk is, in fact, stupid, "Right, Mommy?"

What Would You Like for Dinner?

KALE!!!

My Dinner is Broken. There's No Broccoli.

People are always asking me how I get my kids to eat vegetables, and the main way is that I eat them, but there are other tricks too.

We went to a farm where you get to pick your own vegetables a few days ago, and just showing my daughter that those are the collard greens/lettuce/carrots/broccoli that she picked makes her completely interested in eating those foods.  This always works at the store, to a lesser degree.  If she wants to get melon, cauliflower, or apples, there's a good chance she's going to eat them.

Another trick is to have her help me cook.  Tonight I was just going to roast some vegetables, so it was a perfect time to give her freedom to suggest whatever she thought would be good.

We made broccoli, garlic, chickpeas, and mushrooms, tossed with olive oil, dulse, salt, and red pepper flakes.  Then she insisted we cover it all in tomatoes, and I added some balsamic and nutritional yeast.

She gobbled that dinner up, but especially the broccoli that she had picked herself.  After she ate all the broccoli, and he baby brother had eaten most of his food, she went to get him seconds (without anyone asking her to, which was pretty sweet).  She said she was just getting him the beans, because he like that best (again, really sweet).

Then she said she wanted to get herself another bowl, but her bowl was still half full because she had only eaten the broccoli.

"I think my dinner is broken.  It's ruined, maybe.  It doesn't have any broccoli."

To my little vegan sweety, her dinner is ruined without broccoli.  Meanwhile my friends can't figure out how I get her to eat broccoli :)  

No Fur, No Leather, Just Wear a Peanut Butter Sandwich

Driving home from a you-pick ranch, before my daughter began singing a song she made up about a vegetable farm, we had the following conversation:

Me:  What should I wear on my date with Daddy tonight?

V: A peanut butter sandwich!

Husband and I looked at eachother and giggled, he seemed to perk up.

Husband to me, quietly: Like on Varsity Blues...?

Me:  I could eat a peanut butter sandwich on my date with Daddy, but what should I wear?

V, clearly annoyed that I'm asking her the same question again:  A PEANUT BUTTER
SANDWICH!

Me:  How would I wear a peanut butter sandwich?

V:  With socks and a jacket.

Well, that's that.  I hope I don't get arrested on my date...

Farm Sanctuary

During the whole Chick-fil-A hoopla, I got pretty upset thinking about all the hate being thrown around against the LGBT community, and I found myself using social media to fight hard for them.  Then I started to think about the chickens, and I felt the need to do something more.  So I got on the Farm Sanctuary website and "adopted" a chicken for the year.  My daughter's birthday was coming up, so I adopted a barnyard for her as well.

They send this great little car for each animal telling you how that animal came to Farm Sanctuary, what their personality is like, and what their favorite foods are.  These cards have become some of my daughter's favorite possessions.  As I read through the animals' favorite foods, she exclaims, "PEARS?!  Just like me!"

Today I asked her what she would like to take for sharing tomorrow at school.  She said, "My turkey." She has lots of animal toys, but not a toy turkey, so I didn't know what she meant.  Then she said, "My turkey card!"  She went and got her cards and went through, looking at all her animals and showing us, until she got to the turkey.  She decided last minute to add her pig too, because he's so cute!   Then she got the pamphlet about Farm Sanctuary and put that with her cards.

That's right, without any discussion about the great turkey slaughter next month, she just decided she wanted to share about the turkey her family sponsored...

Color me amazed.

Vegan is Love

For "Sharing" at my daughter's preschool, she chose to bring the book Vegan is Love by Ruby Roth.  She calls that and That's Why We Don't Eat Animals her "chicken" books.  I was so nervous, but everyting went well.

She doesn't even know that she is an activist, but that makes her the best kind.  Her activism comes out of nothing but love.

Can I Pet the Eggs?

Oh man.  I can explain to a three year old what an egg is, where they come from, that baby birds, reptiles, dinosaurs, etc hatch from them... but how do you explain unfertilized eggs.

Lately, my daughter has been asking to PET the eggs at the grocery store.

"These eggs don't have babies in them.  They won't hatch.  They came out of chickens."

We had to have the "there are no baby chickens in these eggs" talk after we were at a friend's house (a friend who eats eggs, whose 3 year old daughter had eaten eggs for breakfast).  I heard from the other room,

"I don't eat eggs.  Baby chickens come out of eggs.  They hatch." 

I'm pretty sure I only complicated things by ordering vegan marshmallow chicks from Sweet and Sara and putting them in plastic eggs and then we ate the little chicks... A bit confusing.

That Girl Eats Chicken

Today we were at the grocery store, and there was another little girl sitting in a cart eating some hot deli food, a styrofoam container of rice and chicken.  My little girl noticed the other girl eating and asked, "What's that girl eating?"  I decided to just say it and have it done with, "Chicken."

"That girl eats chicken.  I don't eat chicken.  She eats chicken.  She eats lots of chicken, but I don't eat chicken."