Day in the Life of an Idiot

 That is a screen shot of a tweet that says something like, "The worst part of being an adult is that no one asks you what your favorite dinosaur is."

Mason has always been an odd one in this case. Even when he was in the "dinosaur phase," it was not dinosaurs that enchanted him, but pre-dinosaurs. This caused a lot of trauma for me, as a stay-at-home parent. Do you know how hard it is to find kid-friendly books about the Cambrian period?  THANK GOD FOR HANNAH BONNER.  She wrote When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Pre-History of Life Long Before Dinosaurs and When Bugs were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tatrapods Stalked the Earth: A Cartoon Pre-History of Life Before Dinosaurs. 

Between Hannah's books and BBC's "Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs," (which Mason watched continuously, with the subtitles on, so that he could learn how to spell the names of the various pre-dino creatures that he loved) Mason mostly got what he wanted.

When he was still in this phase, I took him to Chicago's Field Museum, during one of our annual trips down to see grandma Margaret in Indiana. I love to tell this story on him, because it was very typical of Mason.  I thought for sure that what Mason would want to see was Sue, the big T-Rex. They (Sue's preferred pronoun) were the subject of a musical 'documentary' that Mason listened to a lot. But, while he did run up to greet Sue, what Mason really fell in love with was the Cambrian Period room in the "Evolving Earth" exhibit. I could not get him to leave this room. Not that I tried terribly hard, but there he was, only three, maybe four years old, and he sat and watched the little Cambrian life animated movie that they had projected on the wall and then had me read EVERY SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT EVERY SINGLE FOSSIL/DISPLAY.  We watched tour groups come and go around us.  Eventually, a volunteer came over to excitedly show Mason even more cool things in the Cambrian room.  Finally, he moved on... only to get stuck in the Caboniferous Period for another hour.

The only section he ran through without looking at much? The Hall of Dinosaurs.

And, I'm proud to say, he hasn't changed ONE BIT.  We decided to take a day to go to the Field Museum and once again, I could not get my boy out of the pre-dinosaur section.




Actually, he remarked that the literature all said that it should take an hour to get from the dawn of time to the present, and he shook his head. "Who can see all this stuff in an hour?? It took us at least two!"  I did not point out that, almost no one else on the planet is as enchanted by small sea creatures from the extreme distant past nearly as much as he is, because somewhere out there, no doubt, is someone who loves pre-dinosaurs as much, if not more, than Mason does.

We really didn't actually do much else at the Field Museum. Mason, who is generally excited by sea life, including present-day animals, really wanted to hit the Shed Aquarium first, but we ran out of time.  We did check out the traveling exhibit from China. Mason showed me a number of Chinese characters that he recognized, and pointed out a few that I could also read (the Japanese Kanji for some numbers are the same as the Chinese Mandarin.)  

Next time we go to Indiana to visit grandma, we're going to be sure to get up extra early one day in order to do the Shed Aquarium.... and, you know, maybe go back and just spend a little time with anomalocaris.


 

Our dinosaur hunt was quite successful. Mason and I bagged several of the elusive and mighty bryozoans (they're about the size and shape of Cheerios.) Actually, we found one that looks like a watch gear, and it's completely free standing, as it were. No surrounding rock. It's nifty.

For the uninitated, the park was somewhat hard to figure out. I had a map courtesy of the Park Permit folks, and the same one was posted in a larger scale complete with helpful images and information all along the trail, but I spent a lot of time wondering: "Is this it?" There were several points where actual places were labeled with large wooden posts, ala, "The West Clay Pit" or some such, but if the Park folks were going to go to the trouble of put up a sign for that, you'd think a helpful "fossil area" would be useful too. Still, it kind of added a treasure hunt aspect to the whole experience.

There were a surprising number of people just wandering about, some were there with tools, like us, but others just seemed to be walking their dogs or otherwise enjoying the trails. The trails themselves were cool, honestly. Some were clearly "official" and others... well, Mason and I wandered around in the wetalnds area probably following deertrails (I sank in some serious muck at one point), but we had a great time pretending to be on a mission to rescue Princess Leia from the remnants of the Empire. Because this park is on the Mississippi bluff area, it was very reminiscent for me of the Hixon Forest trails in LaCrosse. Steep! Several times I slid down areas on my butt (watchful for my wallet slipping out.)

We had a great time. Like any good fossil hunters, we got sun baked and dusty. A success for most six year old boys, I should think. I think it helped that Mason knew the sort of things we'd find yesterday. Despite all my big talk about hunting dinos, he did *not* have his heart set on finding T-Rex. Like I said, he knows more about the Ordovician period than I do, so he was quite content to dig a few holes and admire the clam shells and petrified "seaweed" that we found. (In fact, unlike most kids I know. Mason seems much more interested in PRE-dinosaurs anyway. I think it goes to his general fascination with sea life. The marine biologist in him likes the Cambrian period when, as he puts it, "all life on Earth existed in the the ocean.") Mason was in a great mood for it yesterday too. He kept reminding *me* that it would be okay if we didn't find any fossils. The adventure hike was good enough. Note: Mason isn't usually the patient one in the family.

The rest of the day was spent back to school shopping. Mason has outgrown his school pants and shoes, so we had to make a stop at Kohl's. We also had a successful hunting outing there. We bagged us several tan pants and a few black. He also got some shoes (on sale!), so I think we're ready. We have the open house at Crossroads tomorrow. I'm looking forward to meeting Mason's first grade teacher and seeing the classroom. Mason informed me this morning that there would be no more "cubbies" for his things. First graders, apparently, have LOCKERS. (This was spoken of in a near mystical tone.)

Well, I'm hoping for a writing date with Eleanor today. I need to get ready for that.

Yesterday Mason and I had plans to meet some friends of ours at "the little zoo" (aka Como, as opposed to the "big zoo" the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley). It was a bit drizzily when we started out at ten o'clock, but there are several indoor parts of the little zoo -- a short tropics trail and the Conservatory -- plus I figured none of us would melt. Besides, I've discovered something strange about myself. I don't mind getting soaked as long as rain doesn't hit my head. I brought my ball cap, so I was good to go. Mason had a rain coat with hood (and, briefly, he decided to be "fancy" and wore a Halloween wig of mine that is long black and pink hair. That got hot pretty quickly, though.)

We had a great time. We even got out to the Japanese garden, which is lovely, even in a slight rain. My favorite part, however, was the butterfuly garden. Como has one of those large log-shapped tents full of hundreds of varieties of butterflies and all their favorite plants to sit on and sip nectar from. Thanks to the slight drizzle all the butterflies were clinging to the undersides of trees or plants and were sitting perfectly still. We could get right up to them and really examine their wings and bodies. It was really amazing. The kids all borrowed my little digital camera and took a zillion pictures of all the butterflies... some of which are quite stunning. (I'm going to download them later today and get them up somewhere...) If you ever get the chance to go to a butterfly garden in a very light drizzle, do it. The butterflies are so much easier to really see! And there was this one tree that looked like it had burst forth in flowers, only each "flower" was unique and really a butterfly seeking shelter.

Wonderful!

We did managed to get drenched on the way back from the big cat house. Periodically during the day, the sky opened up and really let loose a deluge. Then it would go back to a light drizzle. For the most part, we lucked out and happened to be inside when the big dump happened, except for the last one, as I said. Mason and I were absolutely drenched just as we were headed to the car to go home.

All and all, though, a lovely day.

We got home in enough time to have a warm up bath and play a few video games before heading back out into the weather to pick up Mom from work. After dinner, I changed the fish tanks (after all, it was Thursday, fish tank day,) and as I did I thought about the sad tanks at the Aquatic House at the little zoo. They have some cool fish there, but I have to say that some of their choices seemed a bit irresponsible. Bat fish... fry at this point, given how small they are, which are going to very, very quickly out grow the tank they had them in. I suppose they give these guy to the big zoo when they out grow these tanks...but.... I worry people will see those and think, "Wow, I should get one of those for my tank at home!" Plus, long nose gar? (Not in the same tank, mind you, but those things get to be several FEET in length. If you want to see adult gar, go to the Underwater Adventure at the Mall of America.) The archer fish, however, were cool to see... but again pretty crowded. I understand why zoos do that, though. It's not much fun for most people to look in a tank and see only one or two fish. Anyway, it made me feel responsible for my own fish and so I made sure to scrub the glass free of algea and whatnot.

Today is probably going to be a quiet day. Mason woke up in the mood for dinosaurs so he's watching the BBC's "Walking with Dinosaurs." (With the subtitles, in English, on so he can read along to Kenneth Brannaugh's narration. I once asked him about this habit of his, and he said he like to be able to see how to spell the dinosaurs' names versus how they're pronounced.)

Perhaps I'll even get some writing done today.

Fingers crossed!