Thursday, May 04, 2006

Dinosaur!


I've blogged before of my daughter's newfound obsession with all things dinosaur. This is a recent addition to her repertoire of Dora, Dora, Spongebob, Dora.

She can now see a dinosaur, where there is no dinosaur. Case in point.

Yesterday, our cat Louie veered from his usual menu of moths, small birds, mice and the occasional nibble of cat food and brought a little lizard into the house. This is not unprecedented, but rare. Lizards are quick, Louie is sometimes not so quick.
He must have been craving lizard, because it's the second one he's caught this week.

That first one was found deceased in our bedroom by my husband, who gallantly tried to shield me from seeing it, but when I starting insisting that it was cat poop he had to correct me by displaying the lizard's soft dead underbelly and leg. Ew. I almost barfed.

So you can imagine my dismay when yesterday morning there was a little LIVE lizard guarding the door to my bedroom like a sentinel.
I tried, with shaking hands, to corral him into an old Capri Sun box, but like I said -- Lizard fast.
He darted away from me and under the futon in our living room. At this point, I can no longer SEE the lizard, so I feel safe.

Elizabeth on the other hand was quite disturbed. I have to calm her down, and get her dressed pronto because we had to go to Dylan's doctor's appointment.
We left the house with a lizard still inside it. I was scared to come home, you know, to a lizardy abode.

When we finally did get home hours and hours later, I brought the kids inside and then brought in some shopping bags (from WalMart, naturally).
As I was putting a bag in my bedroom, out of the corner of my eye I see Elizabeth pointing to something in the kitchen.
Egad.

"Dinosaur! Dinosaur! Louie catched the dinosaur! Louie killed the dinosaur!"


I came out and saw that yes, yes Louie had captured and murdered the "dinosaur" there he was just lifeless on the kitchen floor with one big puncture wound in his neck. Poor dinosaur.

I finally got him in that Capri Sun box (heh) and threw him out onto the front deck, where I assume he was devoured by the cat that is not ours but lives under our house -- a little gift from our former renters, who also left a giant BBQ. The BBQ would have been plenty dudes.

Dinosaur, dinosaur!
Can you imagine if she had seen her dad's bear?

5 comments:

cube said...

Too bad about Elizabeth's dinosaur :-( I hope she wasn't too upset by its murder.

I loved dinosaurs when I was little. I read about them, I drew them, the works. I even wrangled a visit to the Museum of Natural History in NYC to see the exhibits of articulated dinosaur bones. I found out later in life that, in many cases, the bones had been set up incorrectly, but at the time they had looked awesome to me.

Chris said...

I was also a big fan of all things dino-related when I was little. Ah, memories.

Jessica said...

Her excited utterances re: the dinosaur murder were more prideful than frightened or upset.
She was thrilled that her cat was able to take down the ferocious dinosaur.

cube said...

Wait until she gets old enough to learn that lizards aren't descended from dinosaurs but that birds are. That'll freak her out.

BTW... May the fourth be with you!

Jessica said...

Well, it sure freaks ME out, hopefully my ornithophobia isn't genetic.