Ben’s logic continues to develop. And I quote:

“Did this fish have a mouth? Was it alive and swimming in the water?”

After he gets the answer, “Yes,” he continues to wolf down his baked salmon. So, we dodge that bullet.

Then this one comes when the in-laws have us over for steak (it was delectable):

Ben looks down at the tiny cubes of steak cut from my Kansas City Strip (or New York Strip, depending where you are). “Was this a cow?” he says.

“Yes, Ben, it was,” I say.

He happily devours the remaining bites on his plate.

Whew! Dodged that one, too.

I was only joking about skirting the issue. I was more proud than anything else that he made the connection and asked the question. As far as his decision to keep eating? I can’t pretend to know what he worked out in his mind. Perhaps it was as simple as, “Well, these adults I love and respect are eating it, so here goes nothing.”

The boy never has been much of a joiner, however, so I suspect there was more to it. Something more like, “This is one of the tastiest bits of food they’ve ever given me, so forget Billy Crystal in City Slickers. Cow, meet my stomach.”

In other news, the other day as Ben and I drove home from eating delicious pork chops at the in-laws’ house (they’ve had lots of family in town lately and have graciously included us in the festivities)… Aside: Apparently the clever use of the word “pork” hasn’t sparked Ben to connect it with pigs, by the way. Wait a second, we don’t call steak by the name “cow,” so who told him about that one? Oh well.

My point was, on the way home, I hummed the Star Wars title theme. It was more of an open-mouth hum like, “Daaa, daaaa, da-da-da, daaa, daaa,” the only kind that can hope to do such music justice.

Only a few measures in, Ben said, “What is that from, Daddy, E.T.?”

Now, one might call into question my ability to carry the proper tune. Trust me, I was nailing it. Ben had recognized something about John Williams’ style that allowed him to make that connection within a few seconds.

He has seen E.T. twice, to my knowledge, and as of that night, his only viewing of any Star Wars film was the pod race from Episode I (the boy loves racing). Yet somehow, in that wonderful four-year-old brain of his, he knew that the composer of both was one in the same.

I replied, “No, but it was written by the same composer who wrote E.T.. Very good, Ben.”

Tonight when Ben asked me to hum both in succession, I had to think a moment, kind of like I do when trying to do the same with the na-na section of “Angel is the Centerfold” and the “Smurfs” theme song. Anyway, after I hummed it with my mouth closed, he said, “No, Daddy, do it like, ‘da-da.’ Like that.”

That’s my boy.

Some of you may have noticed that a few paragraphs up I wrote, “as of that night.” More on that later.

(NOTE: I altered the ending of “Off Planet” after Moksha Gren pointed out something I forgot in my rush to finish. It’s a bit of a cheat because part of my excuse for any problems is that I post chapters as I write them, but it was just too huge to leave that way.)