I received a crate of vegetable toys today for reviewing in MOMMY Magazine's nutrition issue. They are from Under the Nile and made with organic cotton-- even the stuffing is organic cotton. The veggies are adorable with bright colors and tiny little faces. Not that I usually pay attention to such things, but two of the veggies are decidedly Waldorf with little dot eyes and dot shaped mouths. In Waldorf-land, toys with faces are supposed to have neutral expressions so the child can imagine whatever expression they want. The carrot and mushroom have blown it all to hell, however, with their cheery grins. I understand the carrot's good humor, but what does a mushroom have to smile about?
Tallulah immediately claimed them, although I intended them for Moxie. "They have faces!" Tallulah exclaimed. "They are grow food!" (In our house fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods are 'grow foods' and junky foods are 'slow foods.') Tallulah's great joy in life is playing friends and family with objects. She lines up nuts and bolts and has them get married, make baby screws, and hunker down in a house formerly used as a paperclip holder. Moxie's bottle accoutrements are taken out of the silverware drawer and lined up into families of nipple, screwtops, and bottle covers. The new vegetables fit into Tallulah's worldview as they belong to a category and come with their own 'house': a wood vegetable crate that Pea Pod immediately takes over with his long, supposedly pea-filled legs. The vegetables reflect Tallulah's personal preferences: while Carrot gaily sings, "I'm a carrot. I'm orange and crunchy," Tomato seems to spend a lot of time defending itself against the others. "You have seeds!" they accuse.
Despite the interpersonal conflicts, the vegetables are decidedly on the side of good; they quickly capture and imprison a Star Wars bad guy figure received in a --gasp-- McDonald's Happy meal. And while the vegetables talk a little trash to the bad guy, their techniques would be considered tame by LAPD standards. Tallulah doesn't see the poetic justice in villianizing a toy from McDonald's-- she only knows he is a bad guy because of a conversation with her dad, the expert on all things geek-- and I wonder if I can use this good guy/bad guy dynamic to demonize the junk food Tallulah increasingly prefers. I imagine stuffed chocolate bars, cupcakes, and cookies brutalized by the vegetables and crammed into a graham cracker box jail cell.
Moxie examined the toys in the same way she approaches all objects. She picked them up, looked at them from every angle and both in close proximity to her eyes and as far away as her pudgy baby arms can extend from her body. Slowly, with eyes slitted in pleasure, she tastes each one, running her tongue along seams and gumming the notched stems of the carrot, tomato and bean. Shaking them viciously, she checks for rattles. Sadly, not one makes a peep and they are ready for the final test: gravity. Flinging them from the overhead position, they fly from her fingertips and take a quick downward trajectory. She watches them fall until them are firmly on the ground, then reaches for the next until all four vegetables lie in an organic heap on the kitchen floor. She peers over her highchair tray at them, then bangs her tray in her self-declared baby sign language, clearly communicating, "Those were great, mom, but it's time for some real veggies! Chop me up a snack!"
After years of spending time with vegetarians who refuse to eat anything with a face, it amuses me to see faces added to vegetables to make them more appealing for consumption. I don't know how Tallulah will rationalize it-- she hasn't yet understood that the 'Bock Bock' of a farm chicken in our rousing 'Old MacDonald' song is the same animal on her plate-- but I look forward to using the stuffed carrot to encourage Tallulah to eat her dinner carrots, a process my husband and I are calling 'carribalizing.' With the stuffed carrot in hand, I'll lean it's organically stuffed face down to the dinner plate where it's orange siblings lie steamed and awaiting their fate. "What was that?" the carrot will say in my puppet voice. "You say you want to be eaten? That your life will be a waste if you are thrown in the garbage? You love Tallulah and can think of no better ending than to be masticated between her teeth and ground into little tiny bits? You look forward to her pearly teeth, the gates to the heaven of her tummy? Hmm. Well, Tallulah?"
