Do you discourage a child from wanting a pet lemon?
One might think that having a cat or a dog would be enough of a pet for a child, but for my middle daughter who had one of each, that could not be further from the truth. For a solid two years, my daughter always wanted to carry a lemon and the wooden lemon from one of our kitchen toy sets would never cut it. Her lemon pet was called Kai for unknown reasons and every time he would finish the end of his lifespan, a new lemon would be picked out to replace the outgoing piece of fruit. At first, the replacement of Kai would happen well after bedtime in order to cause the least amount of grief around the inevitable. After a period of time, the pet owner would help with the proper disposal of the old lemon and select the new lemon as she would magically know which lemon had Kai’s essence.
How do you take care of a pet lemon? The answer is quite simple, the lemon goes everywhere except for school and the grocery store (nobody wants to get in trouble for lemon-napping!). Kai would often make trips to grandma’s, play with toys, witness his owner eat other pieces of fruit in front of him and even go to bed. He was a low maintenance pet as he never needed a drink or food at all.
Normally, it would take about a day until the lemon would hit the floor and another day or two for him to get a soft spot would be end of that particular piece of fruit. Sometimes the lemon formally known as Kai would end up in a glass of water or tea, while other times he would be an ingredient for a dish. When the depending doom of the lemon was near, we would go to the grocery store and my daughter would then select the next one to pass the torch to. At first, she would get upset if she witnessed the replacement in process, but that would wear off with time. A drop or short time of the lemon being missing was always problematic.
Eventually, my daughter let go of her pet lemon and it was a gradual event that did not have a traumatic end. Sometimes she will point to a picture of lemon and remember fondly of her times with Kai. One thing is for certain, she still has not tried a lemon!
