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Claire is a somewhat slow eater at dinner time. Veeeery slow. She will sometimes just zone out and not move her fork.

So tonight, as I do on many nights, I set a limit. Tonight I set a time limit, a concept that is somewhat new to Claire. She gets it has something to do with clocks, but that's probably about it.

I told her, 30 minutes into dinner having been placed in front of her, that I was going to take it away in 10 minutes whether she had eaten any more or not. She got very upset by this and started to eat again.

I continued doing dishes, cleaning up Ella and generally winding down dinner. I'd tell her every minute or so "eight minutes left", "five minutes left and I take the food away". When I got to four I said "In four minutes the time is up".

She chewed a bite, then replied.

"Daddy, the time is not up. The time is down."

"It came down because of the moon, and the moon came down too and the time does not want to go back up because it is scared and so is the moon and the moon needs to stay down and so does the time. The time does not want to be up."

"Oh" I replied. "Um, two minutes left...."