When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth

The museum’s animatronic Tyrannosaurus has spider webs between its teeth. I just noticed them yesterday. They’re hard to see unless you’re at the right angle.

Beckybean met Tyrannosaurus Rex last Friday. Her Gaga reports that Rebecca was so scared they had to detour around the dinosaur, but that afterward she wanted to go back and look.

Monday was day 34 of my cycle, the last day my period could come before I could say it was definitively late. I’d been exhausted all week and queasy off and on for the last two weeks. Everything smelled too strong and my abdomen and leg joints felt funny. Then on Monday I started spotting.

Whenever we get close to the Tyrannosaurus, I hold Rebecca cheek to cheek. I think she’s still a little bit afraid it might attack. On Tuesday afternoon the spotting turned to bright red bleeding, and from there it turned into a normal period.

Rebecca wore her new dinosaur shirt to the museum on Tuesday, and I said that maybe the Tyrannosaurus would think she’s its baby. On Wednesday she wore her fancy purple dress–the one she wore to my cousin’s wedding–and informed me that Tyrannosaurus Rex wears lots of dresses, too, because Tyrannosaurus Rex usually goes to a lot of weddings. I can only imagine.

By Thursday, Rebecca is running to the museum entrance while pretending that she’s running away from the Tyrannosaurus. I notice that one of the animatronic baby Triceratops has started clicking as it moves. My pregnancy symptoms finally go away.

This week we’ve made innumerable playdough dinosaur eggs, 6 jello dinosaur eggs, two volcanoes in a cup, one paper mache dinosaur egg, and several dinosaur habitats, including a dinosaur hotel room on wheels. We’ve bought one dinosaur shirt, two plastic dinosaur eggs, 12 small carnivorous dinosaurs, one book about Tyrannosaurus Rex, one bigger T-rex whose mouth can open and close, and we’ve lost one ball of cells that couldn’t quite turn into a baby.

It turns out that I buy more than usual when I’m exhausted and sick. New toys buy me time, after all, or at least a break from playing surgery or groceries over and over. I feel like I’m supposed to say no, but my no’s are all busy on other things. “Will it bother you that the Tyrannosaurus can’t stand up?” I ask as Rebecca carries it toward the cash register, gently discouraging, “What will you do with it?”

“Take care of it,” she says.