(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My son’s dinosaur hunting hat
Last week my son came home from school with a dinosaur hunting hat and an invitation to a birthday party. The theme of the party was Jurassic park. There would be a dinosaur egg hunting competition (hence the need for the hat). My son was thrilled, he adores dinosaurs and as little as he is, knows his triceratops from his tyrannosaurus. We have dinosaurs lurking in all the rooms of our house.
On the back of the invitation, there was a map showing directions to a palace. Yes, you read right, A PALACE.
The birthday boy was a VILP; a very important little person and in the same school as my son. We live in a small city with few schools so this is a likely situation.
In the run up to the party our home was filled with excitement and commotion, our conversations were about palaces, birthdays and dinosaurs. ‘What would we buy as a gift, he probably already had every toy there is to have?’
‘Mummy will there be REAL dinosaurs?’
‘And dinosaur bones?
‘Dinosaur bones are called fossils sweetie,’
‘What’s a palace, daddy?’
The afternoon of the party finally arrived, much to my son’s relief. Each day is as long as a lifetime for a little boy waiting to go on a dinosaur hunt.
We arrived at the palace in good time. There were a few families there already and the party organisers were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to Jurassic park in the luscious palace gardens. I looked around self-consciously half expecting to see celebrities and paparazzi milling around. No, only a few mums supervising their children on the bouncy castle in the middle of the park.
‘Where are the REAL dinosaurs mummy?’ asked my son, clearly disappointed by the dinosaur models and the dinosaur fossils made of sponge.
I prepared myself mentally for a colossal tantrum, but thankfully he was quickly distracted by the popcorn and candyfloss machines that were being carried out of the catering truck.
‘CandyFloss!”
‘Is this Funcity mummy?’ he asked much later, his hands and mouth sticky from all the candyfloss he was gulping down. Yes, it was a kind of funcity, Disneyland even. It reminded me of the magical lands in the Enid Blyton books I devoured as a child. There were bouncy castles, clowns, dinosaur photo booths, amusement rides, activity centres, balloons of every size and shape and chameleons in cages. Yes chameleons! They were the closest to REAL dinosaurs we got that day.
‘There’s not enough space in the cage for the baby dinosaur,’ my son observed sadly as he watched the chameleons desperately trying to push their way out of the wire cages.
‘They’re not dinosaurs, they are lizards that change colour,’ responded the chameleon keeper. And with that, my son was no longer concerned about the lack of space. He returned to his search for the REAL dinosaurs.
Then,.. enter the professional dancers and a Gangnum style dance ensued which the children took part in. After the dance session, the children were escorted to the candy area. Adults and children alike were encouraged to indulge in their deepest sugar fantasies. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much candy in one place, other than maybe a Candylicious store! It was a sugar lovers veritable heaven! There were dino eggs, chocolate rocks, twizzlers and sour cola pops, jelly beans and sweets I don’t know the names of. Had we landed in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory?
There was my son arm deep in a tall glass jar full of liqourice twirls, his lips caked with sugar grains, his tongue stained green and his eyes wide with delight (It took us about two hours to settle him that night as a result of all the sugar consumption).
Two and a half hours after we arrived, the palace servers started bringing out trays laden with more food and that really was our cue to leave. We thanked our hosts and left the part with dinosaurs toys; both the soft and hard variety, dinosaur cupcakes and bags of candy precariously balanced in our hands.
When we arrived home my son finally felt safe enough to release his afternoon-long frustration ( a lethal combination of too much sugar,excitement, exhaustion and of course the lack of REAL dinosaurs) and had a full blown tantrum.
‘But mummy there were no REAL dinosaurs!’ he cried. Thankfully, he was pacified by a warm bath and lots of cuddles.
Just as an aside here, the word for a REAL dinosaur is of Greek origin and means ‘terrible lizard’; ‘deinos’ meaning terrible and ‘sauros’ lizard (www.digonsite.com).
Our little ‘deinos’ only slept at 9.30pm, two hours after his usual bedtime. My real worry now is that because he hasn’t been to many birthday parties, he might expect all of them to be that extravagant!
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mixed spice 