Apatosaurus Pinky Toe

One of the major benefits of being a teacher is being able to spend most days at home with the little ones during summer break. I love being able to spend sun up to sun down with my kids, I really do. Most days don’t seem “magical” though. There are fits, lessons in sharing,  and intense”how many more bites do I have to take” negotiations. There’s laundry, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, and since my daughter requires frequent wardrobe changes to suit her fabulous life, even more laundry. Many days are just a chaotic scramble from one snack break to the next. Not a whole lot of “magic”. This is the real side of motherhood; it is not social media friendly.

However, there are some days though that are just truly magic. Last weekend my son woke up begging to dig up dinosaur bones. That was the only thing he wanted to do that day. Like any practiced parent, I consulted Pinterest first to see if there was any way to pull together a paleontologist paradise out of things we had around the house. No luck. We did the next best thing though and took a day trip to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, which does have real dinosaur bones on display.

We have been to the museum a handful of times before and it is always a treat. This time, though, my son is in full throttle dinosaur infatuation. He told me what dinosaur I was looking at and some quick facts before I even had a chance to read the plaque. Another thing that is truly amazing about this place is that most of the skeletons on display were found in Oklahoma, and we’re talking big name dinosaurs. Apatosaurus, Dimetrodon, Archaeopteryx, if you’ve read dino books to your kiddo, you know these guys.

Here’s the magic though. We were taking a second swing by the baby and mama Apatosaurus when we met the sweetest docent. We learned some new things about where the dinosaurs were found, how they compared to other dinosaurs during their period, and then she asked a real rock-your-world question. “Now how would you like to hold a dinosaur bone?” All of our eyes doubled in size.

We were all able to hold a real (not a cast mold) Apatosaurus pinky toe. Pure enchantment. When my son woke up asking to dig up dinosaur bones, neither of us had the slightest idea he would be holding a real one in his little hands before the day was through.

It gets even better though. The docent showed us casts of a T-Rex brain and tooth. We saw pictures of the T-Rex bones the museum had in storage. We learned that one of the dinosaurs was found less than 20 feet below the surface while they were making a new street in Oklahoma City. Then she looped back around on herself and asked us that once-in-a-lifetime question a second time. “Now how would you like to hold a dinosaur bone?” This time my eyes met my children’s and we did not say a thing. Did we hold that Apatosaurus pinky toe a second time? You bet your Brachiosaurus we did.

My kids and I read together a lot. I steadfastly follow the fifteen minutes a day rule to prevent the “summer slide” in knowledge. My son only loves dinosaurs as much as he does because we read about them together a lot. My big takeaway from this day though is that following up that reading time with real world experience is magical.