Bay will turn 3 on March 7th.
He has been going to an in-home daycare (run by my best friend) full time, for about a month now.
He's the only vegetarian. So, his lunches usually look different then everyone elses. Therefore, there is usually some discussion amongst the kids about food, being vegetarian, eating animals, etc. The group is mostly boys. two almost 3 year olds, two 5 year olds, and one 6 year old (after school). There are two girls. A 4 year old and, after school, a 6 year old.
The other kids are always "watching" what he's eating to make sure there's no meat stuff on his plate. And sometimes, one or two of them will ask to have what he has as they like vegchick nuggets and garden burgers too.
The kids ask him a lot of questions about the whys of being a vegetarian and he's just starting to come up with his own answers. We've always just told him that we don't eat meat because in order to get the meat to eat you have to hurt animals and pull their skin off to get their meat... sounds harsh... but we've always told him that and he seems to understand... at least at this age he does. In fact, when he skins his knees or elbows (which happens daily!) he always points to the "raw" part and says "...look, there's my meat..."----

Well, the other day my babysitter totally flaked out for a moment and put actual chicken nuggets on his plate. A five year old immediatly yelled "NOOOO remember baylor doesn't eat that..." and she took them off and gave him his food. Which wasn't veg nuggets as she was out. He was bummed that he had something totally different the other kids and didn't eat anything for lunch. On the way home he told me that "... I wanted to have the chicken nuggets too..." and I reminded him that we don't eat that. And that a lot of chickens had to get hurt for those nuggets and that I would make sure to take over the tofu nuggets for him so he could have something LIKE the chicken nuggets without hurting animals. He was quite for a moment and then said "... Mommy, what if we just ate the BAD chickens...?"

"... We could go find the mean ones and rip them up and make them into nuggets and that would be ok, right"
ummm mmmmm mmmm I had to gulp back a nervous giggle and then explain to him that it would be pretty hard to figure out which ones were mean and which ones were not mean. And that also, sometimes he himself was a meanie and I sure hoped that no one would think it was ok to eat him up like that just because he was being mean.
The next day at daycare Baylor told everyone at lunch time that "... he isn't going to accidently eat chicken or burgers or shrimps because he didn't have time to find the mean ones". lol.
Then, that night, he was bugging my old dog and the dog growled at him. He ran over to his daddy and said "... Ryley forgot and he wants to eat me because I'm being a meanie.... DADDDDDDY remind Ryley that you cannot eat someone just 'cause they're mean..."

anyway, sorry for babbling. But, we're always so amazed at his thought process on EVERYTHING, vegetarianism included!