Organic Donald

26 Months: “Organic Donald had a farm, E I E I O!”

I was a Class A crunchy mom throughout my kiddo’s toddlerhood, and, while I still buy organic when I can and try to be careful about hidden contaminants like BPA, I eventually learned to cut myself some slack and not sweat it if I could only afford “normal” bananas. At twenty-six months, my daughter had no idea what “organic” meant, but she did know that it was a word that prefaced almost every food, plant, and animal that came up in conversation. If something had a mother or grew in the ground, it was “organic” in our family.

After I loudly sang “Old MacDonald” to her while she took a bath, she quickly replaced “Old Mac,” which made no sense, with a word more familiar to her: “Organic.” Since the subject of the song owned a farm, it only made sense that the eponymous Donald would be an enthusiast of sustainable agriculture.

“Organic Donald” became the norm in our house and survived three years as our own homegrown, free range version of the older song. It only faded away after my daughter started school and, much to her surprise, learned that there were many children who mispronounced “Organic” as “Old Mac.” I admit that I prefer our version better.