Friday, June 25, 2004
Dinosaur Tales
Max's love affair with dinosaurs began a few months ago when a sizeable package arrived from Memphis. About three times a year, Glennie Klug packs up the clothes her three boys have outgrown (some still sporting their original tags), and sends them our way. This is quite a coup for Max and Reed because I won't indulge very often in this kind of quality or quantity for rapidly sprouting kids. Her generosity saves me a lot of money, energy and aggravation, and I'm grateful.
When Glennie's most recent package arrived a few months ago, I hadn't reached the bottom of the box before Max spied a pair of white pajamas covered with images of half a dozen different dinosaurs. Although it was only mid-afternoon, Max demanded to wear the PJs RIGHT AWAY and for several weeks tried never to take them off. If other events in your life haven't persuaded you that the only person you can control is yourself, motherhood bombards you with this lesson, and you ignore it at the risk of your sanity. To show you that I'm learning, I have actually permitted Max to go to a restaurant wearing half of his dinosaur PJs (fortunately, the top half). It is a corollary of Murphy's law that when you take your child to dinner in his pajamas, you will run into former work colleagues. If you are lucky, they will have children and/or a fine sense of humor, and you will share a laugh. Still, it's a wee bit embarrassing.
Soon after the PJs arrived, Max's nascent interest in dinosaurs was fueled when Sheri Purvis Sweeney and her family came to visit. We took the kids to the Museum of Natural Science to see the giant dinosaur skeletons. Making this outing particularly enjoyable for Max was the fact that he held hands much of the time with Sarah, who is cute and seven and blonde. So smitten was Max with the lovely Sarah that I wasn't sure at the time that he noticed much of anything about the dinosaurs. But he frequently asks now to go to the "dinosaur station" or the "newseum" to see Sarah and the dinosaurs. After all, memory and emotion, like children, go hand in hand.
Babee recently steered Max's new passion in a more scholarly direction with the purchase of a board book entitled, accurately, "My First Dinosaur Book." Perhaps paleontology has come a long way in three decades, but there are many, many more varieties of dinosaurs than I remember from childhood. Plumbing my admittedly hazy memory, I can recall the names of exactly FOUR dinosaurs: T-Rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus and tryceratops. This afternoon I've counted FORTY-ONE dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles, and that's just in Max's FIRST dinosaur book. Listening to me struggle to pronounce dinosaur names, one could get the impression that I was new to this whole reading business: PAR-A-SAUR-O-LO-PHUS, COMP-SOG-NA-THUS, ME-TRI-O-RHYN-CHUS. Friends tell me that their kids could rattle off the names of dozens of dinosaurs by the time they turned four. Parenthood is humbling.
Last week as I was continuing my house-organizing project (which in some rooms looks more like disorganization...), I opened a drawer and discovered a large dinosaur puppet that my sister, Kimberly, had given me a couple of years ago. Serendipity! I remember putting the puppet away when Max was baby because its eyes were potential choking hazards. When I produced the dinosaur and showed Max how to make its mouth move by reaching a hand and forearm through the missing mid-section, he was hooked. In Max's kingdom (where he is, naturally, The King) the dinosaur puppet has acquired "Most Favored Stuffed Animal" status. This means, among other things, that he doesn't go to bed without it. But with the puppet, Max also bumps up against his limitations. First, while he can get his hand and wrist into the hole, he hasn't figured out how to maneuver his arm and/or the dinosaur's tail in such a way as to get his hand all the way to its head. So making the dinosaur "talk" or "eat" continues to elude him. In addition, Max doesn't comprehend that the correct word for this particular dinosaur is "puppet." Instead, he refers to it as a "pocket." Pockets make sense to Max. He stuffs crayons in his pocket. He likes to wear pants with pockets, just like his dad. He can put his hand in his pocket, and he can put his hand in the dinosaur. So "dinosaur pocket" it is. He likes it.
The latest chapter in the dinosaur tales began a few days ago. Libby Taylor's oldest child, Katy, graduated from high school last month and will be attending Harvard in the fall. I sent Katy a graduation present, and her note of thanks arrived earlier this week. On the front of the card was a muscular Superwoman standing in the mouth of a ferocious looking T-Rex. In typical comic book fashion, Superwoman's outstreched arms are bracing the dinosaur's mouth open, keeping her just out of harm's way from its razor-like teeth. I found the card particularly funny because "superwoman" is precisely how I've thought of Libby for twenty years, and now her daughter, just 18, is identifying in some way with this image. I set the card aside on my desk without much thought. And then yesterday afternoon, Max brought the note to me and asked, "Mommy, what's the T-Rex doing to that lady?" Not wanting to get into the more frightening implications of the picture, I responded, "Honey, the lady is brushing the dinosaur's teeth." That seemed to satisfy Max's curiosity, and certainly comported with his understanding of the world. And then I put the card out of his reach.
Last night, I tucked Max into bed, surrounded by his dinosaur treasures: PJs, dinosaur book and dinosaur "pocket." After I'd kissed him goodnight, Max said, "Mommy, I need the picture of the lady brushing the dinosaur's teeth." So much for keeping the card away from his observant eyes. But my explanation is in tact, and hopefully so is Max's innocence, at least for a little while longer.
When Glennie's most recent package arrived a few months ago, I hadn't reached the bottom of the box before Max spied a pair of white pajamas covered with images of half a dozen different dinosaurs. Although it was only mid-afternoon, Max demanded to wear the PJs RIGHT AWAY and for several weeks tried never to take them off. If other events in your life haven't persuaded you that the only person you can control is yourself, motherhood bombards you with this lesson, and you ignore it at the risk of your sanity. To show you that I'm learning, I have actually permitted Max to go to a restaurant wearing half of his dinosaur PJs (fortunately, the top half). It is a corollary of Murphy's law that when you take your child to dinner in his pajamas, you will run into former work colleagues. If you are lucky, they will have children and/or a fine sense of humor, and you will share a laugh. Still, it's a wee bit embarrassing.
Soon after the PJs arrived, Max's nascent interest in dinosaurs was fueled when Sheri Purvis Sweeney and her family came to visit. We took the kids to the Museum of Natural Science to see the giant dinosaur skeletons. Making this outing particularly enjoyable for Max was the fact that he held hands much of the time with Sarah, who is cute and seven and blonde. So smitten was Max with the lovely Sarah that I wasn't sure at the time that he noticed much of anything about the dinosaurs. But he frequently asks now to go to the "dinosaur station" or the "newseum" to see Sarah and the dinosaurs. After all, memory and emotion, like children, go hand in hand.
Babee recently steered Max's new passion in a more scholarly direction with the purchase of a board book entitled, accurately, "My First Dinosaur Book." Perhaps paleontology has come a long way in three decades, but there are many, many more varieties of dinosaurs than I remember from childhood. Plumbing my admittedly hazy memory, I can recall the names of exactly FOUR dinosaurs: T-Rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus and tryceratops. This afternoon I've counted FORTY-ONE dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles, and that's just in Max's FIRST dinosaur book. Listening to me struggle to pronounce dinosaur names, one could get the impression that I was new to this whole reading business: PAR-A-SAUR-O-LO-PHUS, COMP-SOG-NA-THUS, ME-TRI-O-RHYN-CHUS. Friends tell me that their kids could rattle off the names of dozens of dinosaurs by the time they turned four. Parenthood is humbling.
Last week as I was continuing my house-organizing project (which in some rooms looks more like disorganization...), I opened a drawer and discovered a large dinosaur puppet that my sister, Kimberly, had given me a couple of years ago. Serendipity! I remember putting the puppet away when Max was baby because its eyes were potential choking hazards. When I produced the dinosaur and showed Max how to make its mouth move by reaching a hand and forearm through the missing mid-section, he was hooked. In Max's kingdom (where he is, naturally, The King) the dinosaur puppet has acquired "Most Favored Stuffed Animal" status. This means, among other things, that he doesn't go to bed without it. But with the puppet, Max also bumps up against his limitations. First, while he can get his hand and wrist into the hole, he hasn't figured out how to maneuver his arm and/or the dinosaur's tail in such a way as to get his hand all the way to its head. So making the dinosaur "talk" or "eat" continues to elude him. In addition, Max doesn't comprehend that the correct word for this particular dinosaur is "puppet." Instead, he refers to it as a "pocket." Pockets make sense to Max. He stuffs crayons in his pocket. He likes to wear pants with pockets, just like his dad. He can put his hand in his pocket, and he can put his hand in the dinosaur. So "dinosaur pocket" it is. He likes it.
The latest chapter in the dinosaur tales began a few days ago. Libby Taylor's oldest child, Katy, graduated from high school last month and will be attending Harvard in the fall. I sent Katy a graduation present, and her note of thanks arrived earlier this week. On the front of the card was a muscular Superwoman standing in the mouth of a ferocious looking T-Rex. In typical comic book fashion, Superwoman's outstreched arms are bracing the dinosaur's mouth open, keeping her just out of harm's way from its razor-like teeth. I found the card particularly funny because "superwoman" is precisely how I've thought of Libby for twenty years, and now her daughter, just 18, is identifying in some way with this image. I set the card aside on my desk without much thought. And then yesterday afternoon, Max brought the note to me and asked, "Mommy, what's the T-Rex doing to that lady?" Not wanting to get into the more frightening implications of the picture, I responded, "Honey, the lady is brushing the dinosaur's teeth." That seemed to satisfy Max's curiosity, and certainly comported with his understanding of the world. And then I put the card out of his reach.
Last night, I tucked Max into bed, surrounded by his dinosaur treasures: PJs, dinosaur book and dinosaur "pocket." After I'd kissed him goodnight, Max said, "Mommy, I need the picture of the lady brushing the dinosaur's teeth." So much for keeping the card away from his observant eyes. But my explanation is in tact, and hopefully so is Max's innocence, at least for a little while longer.
1 Comments:
I'd forgotten about the "pocket." I'm glad to hear that it has aquired "most favored" status... if only for a short while. The Pacific Science Center has a permanent dinosaur exhibit, and I think the Burke Museum at UW also has a collection, though it may be more academic. The PSC also has this page of links to dinosaur web sites: http://exhibits.pacsci.org/dinos/
And while we're at the Seattle Center (where the PSC is located), there's another very popular attraction that I think Max will like:
http://www.seattlephotographs.com/photos/seattle_center/Seattle_Center_fountain.htm. One of us may have to sacrifice his or her dry clothing in the interest of little boy pleasure...
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