Daniel and the Trout

A charming narrative about a young boy and his love for a cold water fish...

Daniel is really into all animals that live in the water. Recently, he went to the Denver Aquarium and then to Sea World on our trip to Orlando earlier this month. So, basically for a month now all we have heard is, "Shark", "Dolphin", "Manatee", "Killer Whale", "Crab", "Trout"... he knows them all...

A few days ago, we were watching Discovery Channel's show "Man vs. Wild" in which Bear Grylls is dropped in the middle of nowhere and shows you how to survive with just what you might have in a daypack. During this particular episode Bear was stranded in the Canadian Rockies. He decided to go fishing, but with no fishing pole or hook he was having to grasp at the fish with his hands.

Daniel was standing in front of the television, awestruck at Bear's fish catching ability and would ocassionally yell out, "TROUT!" Bear finally caught a fish and said, "If you don't have a knife, you'll just have to beat its head against a rock to kill it," then begins banging the head of this writhing, flailing fish against a rock. Patrick and I gave one another a quick look of horror that says, "Is this appropriate for a two year old?" Too late!

"What's he doing, Daddy?"

"He's killing the trout, Daniel"

"What's he doing Daddy?"

"He's killing the trout, Daniel"

"What's he doing, Daddy?"

"Daniel, he's still killing the trout."

Bear encouraged anyone lost in the mountains with no chance of a fire to just go ahead and eat the fish raw. You need the protein, afterall. So looking into the camera, he bites into the belly of the now limp, but bloodied trout -- guts squirting everywhere!

"What's he doing, Daddy?"

"He's eating the trout."

"What's he doing, Daddy?"

"He's eating the trout."

"What's he doing, Daddy?"

"Daniel, he's still eating the trout."

And on that note, we sent poor traumatized Daniel off for his nap to consider the horrors of the circle of life. A few hours later, he woke up from his nap and when I went in to get him, the first words out of his mouth were, "Daniel eat trout?"

Sure, why not? So we went to the grocery store where they had several fine trout, with their heads on and everything. Daniel was so excited! He stood on a stool and watched me lop off heads and pull out spines. Just when Patrick and I thought we could not handle hearing the word "trout" another fifty times, we got to eat the trout. Now, most of you know Daniel hardly eats anything at dinnertime, but on this night, he would not stop eating the trout. He even ate all his zuccini after Patrick told him he had to if he wanted seconds of trout. We are going to write the Discovery Channel and ask if Bear Grylls can eat green beans on an upcoming episode.

Finally, after fourth and fifth servings Patrick asked Daniel again if he still wanted some more. Daniel looked very thoughtful and finally said, "No... Daniel eat manatee?"

Patrick and I almost fell off our chairs. So, he's over trout. Not too scarred from the ordeal, but he doesn't quite understand that eating things from the endangered species list is frowned upon. But, until we can get our hands on some manatee we're stuck with hearing, "Manatee!" fifty times a day!