London vs. dinosaurs

I'm sure I'll be accused of brainwashing if I tell you that London loves dinosaurs. But ask yourself this: what kid doesn't love dinosaurs? Every kid goes through a dinosaur phase. Some phases last longer than others. Mine happens to be in its 29th year, but my point stands. This is perfectly normal (for him, and for me).

Aaaaanyway, it all started when I put up the tyrannosaur bust that Vicki got me for Christmas. Well, she didn't really mean to get it for me for Christmas. She ordered something smaller and much less imposing, but the company send this instead. I'm not complaining.


I wanted to put it up in the entryway, so the first thing you would see on entering Casa Wedel was a tyrannosaur about to bite your face off. But Vicki said no. The only place she would let me put it up was over the aquarium. I put it up one day a couple of weeks ago while London was in daycare.

When he came home, he noticed immediately. I mean, it ain't hard, the thing is pretty awesome. London ran over, stood underneath it, pointed up, and said "Guh! Guuuuh!"

The second thing he did was run to his toybox and pull out the little plush T-rex I picked up for him at the Field Museum (on the right in the next picture down). One smart cookie, my little 20-month-old is.

So then I realized that London needed a big plastic dinosaur. Heck, every kid does. So I started canvassing the local toy stores, looking for your basic five dollar plastic tyrannosaur. We've all seen about a zillion of them. They're always on the bottom shelf, near the rubber snakes and the jars of bubbles and the travel games.

I couldn't find one anywhere. Finally I went to this toystore right down the street from the house and struck gold: a foot-tall scaly green red-eyed prehistoric monster, for $7.95.


Of course London immediately understood that this dinosaur was the same sort of thing as the big one that hangs on the wall. At first, he was a little leery of it. He'd sneak out and touch it with one finger, as if it might bite him. But I showed him that he could knock it down with a swipe of his hand, and pretty soon he was wrestling it into submission. Now if he's playing and I say "Bad dinosaur!" he'll give it a slap and knock it over and laugh and laugh.



Finally, no post is complete without a shot of London crashed out at the end of the day.