Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

My kids love their dinosaurs, fighting over them every chance they get, Lil' Miss loves playing with them but doesn't like to share that much.  I am not quite sure what the attraction to dinosaurs is, but my kids are not alone in their fascination with dinosaurs, it seems to be something all little kids develop.  I don't remember how she first discovered them, but she has been wild about dinosaurs since before she could say any of their names.  She received a big box of them from Santa this past Christmas and she has her own very unique way of playing with them.  Watching her play is quite an experience, she makes up the most amazing stories/situations for them to act out.  There isn't much roaring, and no eating of each other even though she gets the whole herbivore/carnivore thing (she even told me the other day that we were omnivores!) and understands which are which for the majority of the dinosaurs.  Instead, they talk to each other, play with each other and have all kinds of fun adventures.



Last month while watching the Winter Olympics on tv Lil' Miss started playing Olympics/election with her dinosaurs. They were discussing amongst themselves who is going to skate what, some sort of combination between speed skating (she loves Apolo Anton Ohno since she saw him on Dancing With The Stars) and figure skating.  Whoever won the competition would get to be the new president, so I guess I need to explain how elections work again!  Anyway, the dinosaurs were all patiently lined up on the arm of the couch awaiting their turn on the ice, a book serving as the ice they would take turns skating on.  Then, of course, Destructo-Boy comes over and knocks the ice (book) and about half the dinosaurs onto the floor, so a  wrestling match between the siblings commenced over possession of the dinosaurs, amazing similarities to a real election if you ask me!  Recently they have been getting pulled out daily during Destructo-Boy's morning nap (so he can't mess them up) and played with in the doll house.

So you can understand my amusement at how Lil' Miss plays with hers, (it is quite a sight to behold) they are currently arrayed outside of her pink Barbie dream house, small ones to the left, big ones to the right, (not sure what is going on with that) waiting to enter said house.  I decided to ask Lil' Miss what the dinosaurs are doing and almost wished I hadn't!  A rather garbled explanation later, and I am just as confused as before!  I'll try to the best of my ability to explain this to you more clearly than it was explained to me, but I fear it still won't make much sense.  The dinosaurs are lined up to go through the door of the dollhouse where they stand on a 'circle' so the tv screen in the dream house can show where their infections are.  Okay...Then the tv screen will show red dots in their bones, letting the doctor know that's where the infection is.  She just studied the letter X in preschool the other week, for which they drew pictures of x-ray fish so I think this is the Lil' Miss' version of an x-ray machine. Apparently they need to stay in the doctor's office for a few weeks and the infection will go away with the consumption of cherry flavored medicine and water.  Got it?  So now it seems we are mixing up the ear infection adventure of last month (OMG the drama!) with the x-ray from preschool.

But I think hands down her best creation for the dinosaurs has got to be the meat machine.  What you ask is a meat machine?  Let me explain, she was playing with the dinosaurs on her windowsill (to avoid Destructo-Boy's incursion's into dino-land notice a sub-theme here?) and told me that the meat-eaters weren't mean (by mean I believe she meant they wouldn't try to eat the other dinosaurs).  I invited disaster by asking why that was and she informed me that the meat-eaters could just go off to the other end of the windowsill and get steak out of the machine.  Oh really?  So, it's like a vending machine of meat?  Yes, she answered, that's exactly what it is, a steak machine.  Let me just say here that when I related this to our friends, the guys all went nuts thinking it was the best idea ever and they would love to have access to a steak vending machine.

I just love to watch her imagination at work and even though I don't quite understand the attraction, I do hope her enjoyment of dinosaurs lasts a good long time.  You never know, maybe someday Lil' Miss will decide to be a paleontologist and discover some new species never heard of before!