Exotic diets for children.

A few days ago, I overheard my younger two sons, engaging in a curious conversation.

Fintan and Tiarnan stood in the kitchen holding bowls of soup.

Tiarnan,five, took a sip. He appraised the flavour intently.

"My soup has rabbit, in it.", he declared, with a definite certainty.

As if challenged, Fintan, seven took a sip of his own soup.

"My soup," he began, raising his voice, "has lion - white lion - in it."

"Well my rabbit is really nice.", Tiarnan countered, taking further eager sips.

"But mine is LION!", said Fintan, emphatically.

I had to smile. After all, what they were actually eating was nothing more exotic than mushroom soup. Perhaps they didn't know what the mushrooms were and so were using their imaginations to fill the gap!

Anyway, it was clear that both enjoyed their "exotic" soups, since they finished them all up.

Sometimes, I think a child's world is eminently more interesting than any adult's: just look at what they eat, for a start. Perhaps I should join them, and try reimagining my own food.

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Listen to the children

Today, we went to a nature park in Singapore. There are a few of these and they help give nature-lovers a break from the City.

We wandered far and wide within the park, seeing its peaks, its artificial lakes (dug out quarries) and wildlife, peeking from the trees. There is no need to speak of the detail of this.

After some while climbing many a step, high up in the midst of the "park", Fintan suddenly said:

"I heard a lion roar!"

My wife and I looked at each other and smiled. We both knew of Fintan's great imagination and, not having heard a lion roar, ourselves, we ascribed it to his imagination. "He heard a lion roar." echoed my wife, as if she was saying that he had seen a U.F.O.

About three minutes later, we both heard a sound, rather like a roar, in the distance. "Did you hear that?" my wife asked, suddenly a little anxiously. "Yes."

"Maybe not a lion," I said, doubting that there would be a lion roaming any part of Singapore - despite its name: "Lion City".

My wife looked towards the dense foliage all around us and to the kids down below us, perhaps thirty metres away. She didn't need to speak her thought.

"Boys!" I shouted, "Come close!"

"Don't frighten them." she said, a bit frightened herself.

"Perhaps it is a wild dog." I hazarded.

"Yes. Not a lion."

An animal, anyway, I thought.

The boys came closer and we walked together through the wooded area, a little more warily than before.

So, listen to the children when they speak of having heard and seen things: for one thing is for sure - they haven't heard and seen nothing. There will be something behind their perceptions even if inaccurately described.

What that something was, we never found out. It sounded like an animal roaring. It could have been a distant machine, of course. It was, however, something - not the nothing we had supposed when Fintan (and his acute senses) first spoke of it.

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Tiarnan tries inter-species communication

At the Imax theatre, yesterday, there were many giant images of animals projected on the hemispherical screen. Among them were lions - giant gaze filling lions.

Now, what do you think Tiarnan did when he saw a giant lion appear before him? Cry perhaps? Cower away, as any baby might on being confronted by something so alien, bristling with giant teeth?

Nope. He looked up at the great cat and tried to talk to it. "Grrrhh", he said, in a minute and most endearing growl, as if the giant cat would be able to hear him. Tiarnan tried to enter into a dialogue with the cat. He knew lions made such noises and had deduced that was Lion Speak...the language of the lions and thought he would have a go at it.

Sweet.