There is meat in your butt

Well, we are back from the trip to Ennis, and it was fun. I'm very glad to be home, though. I spent the time hanging out with a large group of friends, 5 toddlers, and a wild array of dead animals- so it wasn't so much relaxing as it was a big change from my normal routine.

Matt successfully shot and killed three deer, which was his goal for the deer. He didn't get any pronghorned antelope, but that's OK. They are much harder to hunt. Maybe he'll have more luck next year.

Cooper, as one might have suspected, was highly wary of the rotating collection of freshly gutted dead deer in the garage of our giant rental cabin. The first day he was willing to go in and "look at the animals" but then my friend Kristina was showing our other friend Dalit how to remove a certain cut from the deer and... well... Cooper freaked out. I think he thought Kristina was hurting the deer with the knife. Mind you, the deer had been dead for about a day or two, but Cooper didn't know that or understand it. He was screaming and crying and backing up into things- it wasn't pretty. The other toddlers were all poking the eyeballs of the dead deer with sticks and being yelled at to quit touching stuff, so the contrast was really amazing.

After I got Cooper calmed down and away from the deer, I explained to him that we hunt deer, and then once they are dead, you can get meat out of them with a sharp knife. He kinda thought about that and said something about how he didn't want to look at the animals again. A friend called out from across the hall "He's gonna be a vegetarian at this rate!" I laughed.

Cooper isn't dumb, though. He thought about it for a while. At dinner that night, he told me that he eats meat sometimes, and there is meat in deer. I agreed, and we dropped it. The next day, he talked about how there are dead deer in the garage, but he didn't want to go look at them, and they have meat in them and you get the meat out with sharp knives. I said that was right and that deer have deer meat in them, and that we eat deer meat. And I left it at that.

On the third day, Cooper put all the pieces together. He started talking about how all the deer in the garage were dead, and how they had meat in them, and how Daddy was gonna cut off their tails and their heads, and how the meat in them was deer meat, and that Cooper likes to eat deer meat, and its yummy, and he's gonna eat deer meat for dinner and that will be good. All in one sentence, like that. I agreed with it all and told him that the deer meat is all over the deer, especially in the butt of the deer. I thought he'd find that funny. I didn't get a response, so I left it at that. And then he wanted to go look at the deer, which kinda surprised me, so we went to the garage. Needless to say, I didn't have to warn him not to touch them. And we chatted about the deer, and how they are dead, and how then you get the meat out with a knife. And then he said...

Cooper: "Mommy, there is deer meat in the deers butts."
Me: "Yup! And we eat it. It is good."
Cooper: "I like deer meat."
Me: "I'm glad."
Cooper: "I have deer meat in my butt."
Me: "No you don't. You are silly."
Cooper: "YOU HAVE MEAT IN YOUR BUTT! THERE IS MEAT IN YOUR BUTT! HA HA HA HA!"

So just like that, it was a funny joke. He's amazing.