Golden Boy Catches a Dinosaur

Thomas loves dinosaurs. Our entire house is infested with them. They hide in coloring books, toy bins and under beds. They are fought over, fought with and fought through. Liz and I are required to “feed” them and tuck them in at night in their “beds.” Dinosaurs and all their crazy names, behaviors and diets are now daily conversation items in our family.

I’d like to say that this infestation is mostly confined to Thomas’ room, but that would be a lie. Even so, his room is still a haven. They adorn his bed spread and rug, and some hide in his closet while others sleep with him in bed. There are even some on his wall.

The dinosaurs on Thomas’ bedroom wall are of the glow-in-the-dark variety. So yes, while your kids sleep under glow-in-the-dark stars, Thomas sleeps with glow-in-the-dark dinos. (He also has stars.) Over time nearly all of these dinosaurs have fallen from their spot on the wall above his dresser. When they fall, they slip down the wall and end up behind the dresser, much to Thomas’ consternation. Twice he has cried out to us in the middle of the night to come rescue a newly fallen dino. Now they graze happily on the top of the dresser. All but one, that is. A single stegosaurus has clung securely to the wall for months since his fellows have fallen.

On Saturday, Thomas remarked about this fact and then asked “when will that dinosaur fall?”

“I don’t know, bud,” I said. “It may take a really long time; it’s been up there so long, I’m not sure that it will ever fall.”

“No,” said Thomas, “I think it’s going to fall soon. But … hey! Daddy! When it falls we need something to catch it so it doesn’t go behind the dresser. What should we use?!”

“Uh ….”

“Oh, I know! I’ll use this dino drawing!” The drawing was a square of card stock with a brachiosaurus printed on it; Thomas had colored it as part of an art project while at day care. He placed the card on top of his dresser and slid it to the wall so that it covered the gap between the dresser and the wall and was directly underneath the stegosaurus.

I figured that card would be moved long before it had a chance to catch that dinosaur. I figured wrong. Sunday night, one night later, as I was getting a pair of socks for Thomas I saw that very same stegosaurus resting on the card. I shook my head in disbelief and said, “dude, Thomas! You’re the dude! Look!”

“Yeah! I was right! I caught him with my dino net!”