Research and Development

One of our favorite father/son activities these days is dinosaur printing. I'll explain it, and it won't sound all that exciting, but that's okay. We love it, and both look forward to it. Over the last few days we haven't done it as much, and I find myself missing it. There was a time things like this could get to be something of a chore. There is a certain boredom that can creep in when you get wrapped up in the taxonomic repetition of your kid's latest obsession, even if it is something as cool as dinosaurs. You try to keep your eye-rolling to a minimum, or at least do it when he's turned away, but boredom happens.

I don't feel that boredom anymore. Not about anything we do together. Be it calling out car types on the freeway, or reading the same dog detective book seventy-five times in a row, none of it is tedious anymore. No matter what else is on my mind I'm happy to interrupt my thoughts to concentrate on these things now. They are pure joy. It's funny how life teaches you things, and what it chooses to teach you. And how.

So...dinosaur printing then. Look, it's quite simple. Kiernan comes up with a list of dinosaurs from A to Z. Most of them are creatures I have never heard of since when I was a kid they only had five dinosaurs. He sits at the iPad and researches lists of ancient reptiles and comes up with things named Pleurocoelus and Gigantophis which sound like either random jumbles of letters or things he surely must have made up, but every one turns out to be a real thing. Most astoundingly he stores every one of them in that noggin of his. The kid is a machine.

After he amasses his list he brings it over to me at my computer and we set about searching for images. We sift through the results and go back and forth until we agree on which one is best and then save it to my computer. Hold on. Back up. First we have to create a new folder on my desktop. He insists upon this. We've done several sets of these A-to-Z printouts, so there's several folders on my computer. They all have goofy names. Like "Version Duoy" and "Version No Not That" and "Version Dorkopathic."

Once all twenty-six images have been saved we begin printing. We do nine pictures per page for the first two pages, and then four each for the next two pages. Then Kiernan labels them. Finally I punch holes in the pages and put them in a three-ring binder we have for the collection.

All of this is to say dinosaurs are a big part of our lives.

The other morning we were on our way to an acting job I had. As it is for the awesome children's theater company I work for, Creative PlayGround, I felt comfortable bringing Kiernan along with me for the morning. It meant him sitting through two hours of rehearsal and setup, and then another hour of performance and breakdown, but he's such a good kid he can handle three hours like that without breaking a sweat. Plus, he has an iPad and a Kindle Fire, so game on.

As we made our way into Topanga Canyon, Kiernan talked about different dinosaurs. He was reading his Children's Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and going through the pages and telling me which ones were found in which century. "First I'll tell you which dinos were found in the 1800's," he said, and then proceeded to let me know all that had been found then. Next he moved on to the 2000's. Next the 1990's. I'm telling you, the kid is awesome.

At one point he told me which was the biggest meat-eater. It's Megalosaurus. And the smallest dinosaur with the longest name. That would be Micropachycephalosaurus. I'm not kidding. That's a thing. Micropachycephalosaurus. Who knew.

At any rate, the show I was doing that day is our version of The Velveteen Rabbit, adapted by my friend Karen Hardcastle. It is an amazing adaptation, and even though I've done this show for well over a decade, it never gets old. It's such a great story. In the middle of the play, as the boy just gets to know his new toy rabbit, he takes the rabbit on an adventure that makes the toy come to life for him. This particular sequence is done in improvisational format and goes through several stages. We go on an adventure of imagination that is basically up to the actor playing the boy--in this case, me--to create every time. As Kiernan has grown up I've tended to incorporate whatever he's into at the time into the adventures, so on this day in the performance I had Billy and the bunny rabbit having to escape "the biggest meat-eater in history, Megalosaurus!" We did this by using our Micropachycephalosaurus launcher to launch the tiny boneheaded dinosaurs at the bully carnosaur.

After the show, as we packed up the car to head away from the job Kiernan said to me, "Dad, I'm proud of you."

I felt that little tingle that goes up my spine whenever Kiernan says something that really touches me. "Why?"

"I was proud of how you used dinosaurs in the play today."

"Thanks," I said, brushing away the tear that had sprung to my right eye. "I have access to an expert. Know who that is?"

He laughed.

There was a pause. Then...

"But I wasn't proud of you for one thing..."

I smiled to myself. Here it comes, I thought. "Go on," I said, encouragingly.

"You said Megalosaurus was the biggest meat-eater. Dad. That's Giganotosaurus. You know that. I've told you that many times."

"But...but...I thought you said on the way here it was Megalosaurus!"

"No, Megalosaurus is the earliest dinosaur they found. In 1823. Not the biggest meat-eater."

"Oh. Okay. Cool."

We drove on and went on with our day. Yes, I realize that the "I'm proud of you" thing was really a way of softening the blow of the coming correction, but I still loved that he said it, and I was proud of him for saying it, and knowing it.

UPDATE: As I sit here writing this I'm struggling to remember some of the details, and am really struggling with the spelling of these ridiculously named dinosaurs. Kiernan sits at another desk just behind me, our chairs touching, drawing pictures of characters from his new favorite show, Ben 10. He's really getting to be so good at drawing. It's astounding. I love this, since I never looked at drawing as a skill. I just thought I was bad at it and left it at that. Kiernan's Aunt JoAnne gave him a lesson in drawing and basically told him to practice, and that has so paid off. It's amazing.

Anyway, he looked at my computer as I wrote this and laughed at some of what I was writing. As I wrapped up our dialogue he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Dad, I wasn't softening the blow. I really was proud of you for using the dinosaurs."

Eight. He's eight. And utterly amazing.