"What eats meat?"

Sophie's latest favorite topic of discussion is who eats what? Specifically, what animals are meat eaters. And which are meat? and which get eaten? And what do lions eat? And what do crocodiles eat? And are they meat eaters? And did dinosaurs eat meat? What if a t-rex didn't eat meat, then what? Are penguins meat eaters? What about pelicans? Are fish meat? Are bugs meat? Do cows eat meat? What do pigs eat? Do chickens eat meat? Are people meat? What eats people? What do coyotes eat? What eats coyotes? Would sharks eat meat?

 Stephanie tried introducing the concept of people being at the top of the food chain, to help put some perspective and to allay the fear of being eaten by things, but that just unleashed a whole new tangent. We established that T-rex's, crocodiles, tigers, and people are at the top. But elephants are a gray area, because nobody eats them, but they just eat grass. And who's at the bottom of the food chain and what do they eat? We're also trying to get the idea through that sharks, wolves, crocodiles, etc. aren't mean.

 She also has learned carnivore, herbivore, but has more trouble with omnivore. It's funny, though: she won't acknowledge that her pretend dog David eats meat, he's an herbivore, not an omnivore. The irony is that she's more carnivore than omnivore. She likes her meat rare--pink and fatty and grisly. You give her a strip of bacon and she gives you the meaty parts back as change. Today she told me she wanted some more of my brisket. She still had some we'd given her, but I started to cut some more off my piece. She said, "No! I want that piece!" and pointed to a big hunk of fat I had off to the side. So I gave it to her and she polished it off.

 Anyway, we know it's something that's she's just trying to learn about, but the repetition of it gets old sometimes. We're ready to move on to whatever the next focus is.