Sea Monkeys and Red Tailed Hawk for Dinner

It's no secret that we're in a financial bind. (Click on the blogher ads dammit!). I'm not proud or should I say TOO proud to admit that we're in a crunch plus we need to move soon to get out of the ghetto we live in. Ghetto might be a loose term, but I will tell you that we've decided to quit asking one person to stop parking in our spot as he is a CRIP.

But like Malachy in Angela's Ashes, we do have a CERTAIN level to which we will not stoop. I like to think we're not as STUPID as him about it (yeah I'd pick up coal off the road if it meant the difference between my children been warm or cold) and you know, we're not paupers.

We're close.

But not there YET.

Anyway, it's sort of strange how your kids pick up on your status, and how they will convey it to others. I'm accustomed to Lil Satchmo prefacing everything he wants to ask us to buy with "When we have more money, can we get X Y Z..." which makes me a little sad but, at least he sort of understands that he can't HAVE everything in the world.

So, I hadn't really picked up on his meaning behind some conversations he's been having with his grandma. First off, there was the Sea Monkey conversation. He informed his grandmother a while back, that we were going to eat his Sea Monkeys - with some paprika no less. I thought this was a strange story, but something he'd make up as a fancy.

Now today, as I'm sitting out on my balcony watching the rain mist over the forest and the kids were running about playing, a big red tailed hawk swooped past us and over into the forest. The big boy tells me if it comes near the porch, we should catch it and he'll kill it! I let him know that this is completely wrong - this is a beautiful animal, we wouldn't kill a red tailed hawk nor should we play like that.

Shortly after, while on the phone with Grandma, I learn that he isn't playing. He's planning our survival.

You see, he tells his grandma, he's going to catch this red tailed hawk and kill it so we can eat it. We need to do stuff like this, he tells her, because we are broke.

Well. He has a point.

My heart divided. I was heartbroken on one side, because how SAD that he really thinks we are so poor that we are forced to kill wild game to survive. (I promise you this shiny box would get sold before we were at THAT place). But the other side of my heart was so proud that I nearly wept.

He would hunt and kill to feed is family. His sense of survival and commitment to his family is seriously intact and strong.

Days like this, I feel like we have done something right.