From the Mouths of the Baby Goats

Living in the city, trees are as rare as….um, well…trees in the city. So, I took the boys to a park in a suburb of Boston that has a nice little trail to walk around and explore some of the stuff we call nature. There were a couple of soccer fields filled with 8 year old girls in knee-high socks playing a game and surrounded by the proverbial soccer moms with their portable chairs and not-watching-the-game-because-we-are-too-busy-
talking-about-soccer-mom-stuff attitudes.

Surrounding the field was a small row of trees with low, very-climbable trees. I decided to let the boys experience tree climbing and turned to tell them…but they were already scaling the branches. At some point, I heard my youngest son, Marc, scream out “I want to eat sack, Dad!” I pretended not to hear, but the soccer moms all turned to look. “I want to eat sack,” he screamed louder. Flabbergasted, the moms looked at me to see what I was going to do about this outrage that the city dragged into their idyllic “suburbian” landscape.

I knew that Marc was not saying anything filthy and he certainly would have no idea what “eating sack” means…I am not sure I even know what it means. But it sounded dirty. I turned to Marc for clarification and I could feel all eyes drilling holes into the back of my head. “What did you say, Marc?!”, I said in feigned interest.

Marc looked at his hand and showed me the sticky mess on his hands. “Is it OK to eat the sack off my hands?” I started laughing as I realized he meant to say “SAP”, not “SACK!” I was relieved that the moms overheard this and went about their pedicured conversations.

I need to take the baby goats out more often.