Tunnel Time

Open the pod bay doors, Kiernan.

Kiernan and Wendy met Kiernan's friends Nicholas and Veronica (and their older brother William) for a playdate on Friday. After that Kiernan and Wendy went out to lunch at a semi-popular local eatery. Kiernan chose the restaurant based on the fact that it was offering crappy little plastic cute movie tie-in toys from the film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Normally movie marketing has little impact upon Kiernan, but he's hitting a dinosaur phase right now particularly hard, and a lot of the posters from that show feature a dinosaur on them.

At first Kiernan really took issue with this. I think the first time he saw a billboard he asked what kind of dinosaur was on the billboard. But almost immediately after that he said something like, "Wait a minute. Weren't Wooly Mammoths alive during the Tertiary Period? Dinosaurs weren't alive in the Tertiary."

Okay. I'm not sure that's exactly what he said. But while it sounds impossible for a four-year-old to say something like that, the following is a direct quote from the other night after I put him to bed. He only gets to call us in two times after he goes to bed. Sometimes he uses these calls for a drink of water. Sometimes all he wants is a "hug, kiss and I love you". On this night he used his second call to ask me,

"Daddy? Were there plants in the Tertiary?"

When the kid gets into something, he really gets into it.

So while he doubted that the dinosaur appearing on the billboard made any sense, he still became fascinated with the movie. Eventually we showed him a trailer online and he immediately fell for the characters. When Wendy was out and about with him he saw a billboard advertising the animal character toys included with kids' meals at a restaurant. So he wanted to go there for lunch.

Those people who market stuff to kids. Not dumb. Evil? Perhaps. Dumb? Nope.

Anyway, Kiernan got some play time in at the little play area at the restaurant and Wendy took these pictures. I liked the series and thought I'd post them.

[PIC NOTE: Kiernan took the picture of Wendy.]