Mr. Cheerio, Where is Your Family?

Food has feelings. I was sure of this as a child. Not the whole I need to be a vegetarian because my hamburger was once a cow kind of feelings. More along the lines of my Cheerio's are all a family so if I leave one in the bowl then it's family is missing it!

 

 I had rules for what could and could not be left behind on my plate. If it was a food I didn't like then sorry little chick pea family you will have to go on without your son, I will not eat one more bite then I have to! If it was a food I could stand but wasn't one I really liked I'd take one for the team and suffer through those last bites because you just can't break up a family. I didn't realize I was "breaking" it up in a different way!

I was oblivious to this major flaws in my logic (one of many), the whole chewing and crushing the poor food family part. Apparently I decided if one family member had to suffer a painful crushing death then they all did. That is probably a good thing I didn't think about being a food murderer by chewing or I would have had to start swallowing my food whole!

Other inanimate objects, well they had feelings too. I was certain of it- like stuffed animals, yep they know! If I let one sleep with me then the others were jealous. So I had to come up with a rotating order to who got to sleep with me when. Teddy bear today, Stuffed California Raisin tomorrow, followed by Annie, Rainbow Brite.... And God forbid I screw up one night and hug or kiss one of my toys  in front of the others. Great, just great now I have to hug and kiss them all! Vacations or sleepovers, a whole other cause of undue stress. Who gets to go?

I did have a favorite stuffed animal- Boo Boo the Bear. He of course was top dog, or I guess top bear, in my bedroom. I just decided that all the other stuffed animals knew this and had to accept it. It was like he was the king. Everyone knows that all worlds have kings! The other stuffies would just understand. One of them could always vie for Boo Boo's position if they wanted to. I mean seriously stuffed animals just knock up the cuteness and cushy factor a little! Be the first one I see when I need to cry or am scared, it gets you brownie points! It isn't my fault if they weren't there. Unless you fell under the bed. Then OMG you get special treatment for the week as an apology. Dear sweet cabbage patch baby, I didn't know you were there, and it was so dark, you were probably so scared! I'm so sorry! You can go on my next sleep over!

I kept all this craziness to myself. At least I was aware enough to realize that other people would think I was a loon. But really that wasn't it totally. I thought I was the only one smart enough to realize that the stuffed animals and food had feelings.

Through the years I've heard other people make mention of the stuffed animal feeling, not necessarily the food, but I can't have been the only one (or could I? lol) I kinda keep an eye on my kids, wondering if any of them inherited my emotional connection to food and toys...Lucy just might have... She says, "Hello, I'm going to eat you!" to a lot of her food before she eats it.