On Saturday, my wife, daughter and I were driving back from dinner in the neighborhood. Lil’ Lucy stuck her head out the window and, after a few moments of enjoying the breeze, shouted, “No wonder dogs love this!”

Yesterday, at the National Zoo, we were lucky to be at the big cats area during feeding time. A young lady zoo worker chucked an enormous piece of meat into the lions’ den and then into each of the two tiger exhibits. When the second tiger grabbed her shank of meat, she immediately turned around and ran back to a private spot to eat.

My daughter, on my shoulders at that moment, said very, very loudly, “That’s so cool. It’s like she’s grabbing a baby and running away with it.”

The crowd of onlookers was more than a little amused/horrified.

Later, Lucy explained that she meant the tiger took the bone away like it was her own tiger cub in order to protect it, not like she was snatching someone else’s baby. We were relieved, but still concerned that large numbers of strangers think our daughter is well on her way to serial-killer-weird.

Update: Several readers have made this point:

Jonah,
Not knowing how old Lil’ Lucy is ( I imagine I’m in the same boat as thousands of others) the first thing I thought of is that you were taking an enormous chance on telling of letting your daughter do that, oh not because of her safety (that’s your job) but because I saw a flood of email piling up in your inbox over allowing your daughter to do that. I wouldn’t be surprised if a nanny-statist reported you to the authorities for endangering the welfare of your child.
As for her comment about the tiger, there’s a reason there have been at least two successful television shows devoted to the subject of children and their word choice, Kids Say the Darnedest Things – yes, yes they do.

For the record, she stuck her head out the window as we were pulling into our driveway. We wouldn’t let her do that on the road or highway. Oh, and she’s six.

Update II: An e-friend sends this:

Ironically, the last thing I did last night before going to bed was watch the bloggingheads where Peter Beinhart told you that his son, when being pushed to finally go to bed and that he can’t just stay up all night, said “yes we can!”
To which you responded that one day your daughter was hearing you and the wife watch the news with Obama on, and she yelled “Is Barack Obama STILL the President??!”
I thought your daughter was quite eloqent there…better line than the tiger-meat thing, for sure.
-[Name withheld]
P.S. I’m gonna start saying that now every time I see the [redacted] on T.V.: “Good God, is Obama STILL the President???!”