Jack: Speaking of Jude. He ate an eraser today.
me: Sigh. Why?
Jack: Because it looked like a cupcake.
me: And did it taste like a cupcake?
Jack: Not really. I tried it too. But the green regular kind that goes on the end of your pencil.
me: So yours didn’t even look like a cupcake but it was tempting enough to try??
Jack: I guess so…
me: You know that isn’t food, right? And your body can’t digest it? Did you actually swallow it?
Jack: (silence)
me: Nice. You’re old enough to know better than that right? It’s not like you’re a baby that just puts things in his mouth. (And here is a site that I found interesting…edible pencil toppers!)
Jack: Did I ever eat non-food-things when I was a baby?
me: All the time. Like you once ate a pistachio shell, choked on it, threw it up and crawled away, all before Daddy or I even knew what was happening.
Jack: But that’s a TREE nut! I didn’t die?
me: No, that was probably your first exposure to tree nuts. That’s when your body said “hey, this is a bad guy…let’s remember what he looks like and next time assemble the army to kill him.”
Jack: And next time I ate a tree nut that’s what happened? But I could’ve died!!! Why does my own body want to kill itself??
me: Your body just sees the enemy, which in your case is tree nuts. So sometimes in order to kill the enemy, it has to take out some innocent bystanders in your body, and then you have a really bad reaction. Your body is protecting you a little too well unfortunately. It’s going after it’s own people.
Jack: Oh man, that is just like in a Star Wars book where Yoda picked up a battle droid and it started shooting and then Yoda turned around and had it shoot at it’s own guys!
me: And that’s just like a tree nut allergy?
Jack: Didn’t you just hear what I said?
Sh*t My 6-Year-Old Says (but he's 18 now) 