Said Leilani as we walked to the car. Oh, I said. Why? “He saved a life!” was her reply. Before I could think I said “No he didn’t…[then thinking caught up with the mouth]… which life did he save?” “The Spider’s life – Yea Daddy!” Then she started to sing “The itsi bitsi spider climbed up the waterspout…”
Andy had caught a (not so itsi bitsi, but not as big as the one in the photo) cane or huntsman spider alive at our friends house and set him free, after our friends had already sentenced the spider to death and attempted to execute the sentence (and the spider).
Leilani is really aware of life and death for her age, we noticed that too on a beautiful starfish, that we had found outside the water – to us it looked dead or almost dead, so we examined it and even briefly thought about taking it home and drying it, but to her it was clear that it needed to go back into the ocean she whined, yelled and screamed that it was still alive and needed to go into the ocean until I thew it back (45 seconds after we found it).
I try hard to steer her away from dead animals and roadkill, but when I don’t succeed she will discuss endlessly where the animal went, (“Did he go to cat heaven?”) and whether it will come back. I hid the Bambi book because it took more than 15 minutes the last time I read it to go past the page where the hunter shoots Bambi’s mother. It seems she repeats just 4 or 5 questions over and over and my answers don’t give her what she is looking for. (And yes I know that I am the parent and could cut short discussions if I wanted to, but I feel it is important to let them run their course to a natural finish, or stop from exhaustion).
After almost a year she still occasionally brings flowers to Kiko’s grave or goes there to greet him or say goodbye, or sing him the healing song.
When she wants to try sausage or meat and I tell her thats made from dead pigs or cows she doesn’t ever give eating it a second thought, no matter how much her friends seem to enjoy it. (And yes, she is 2 years old and loves to try new foods :-) I also change the topic when it comes to why we eat fish.
