El in his Stegosaurus costume for his book week
A few months back, El was obsessed with dinosaurs. It started innocently, when I had a little pull out book, and it introduced a few common dinosaurs to him, such as the T-Rex, triceratops and stegosaurus.
A parent in his weekend class told me that she had brought her son to the Singapore Science Centre, and he liked the dinosaurs even though he was scared. We brought him there, and I kept imitating the dinosaur sounds and actions to make it less scary for him. He loved the dinosaurs, and the love affair started there.
I was at a book sale, and I picked up a dinosaur book. We happened to have a dinner with some relatives, so I brought it along to entertain him. Boy, he was totally amazed by the book. I went through the dinosaur names (really tough), and there were colourful pictures, each showing the sizes, and the type of diet they had. A young girl was sitting beside me, so I also showed her the book and she liked it as well.
From then on, he started learning the names, the pronunciation, and he went on youtube to search for dinosaur abc. He has this inexplicable urge to learn everything in alphabetical order. Perhaps it was the Zoophonics that started this craze.
He must have watched the video a hundred times.
Then came along book week in his preschool, with only 1 week notice! How on earth was I going to rent a dinosaur costume that he was willing to wear? There was no time to order anything online. In the end, I decided to make one.
My friends gave me ideas on how to make it work. So I got a jacket and his school cap, used velcro on foam triangular cutouts, and stuck on them to form the spines of a stegosaurus. I think his teachers loved it, and he liked it too.
A few months later, his father brought him to an exhibition at Plaza Singapura. I did not go, and so I asked him about the dinosaurs.
Me: what 4 dinosaurs did you see today?
El: andesaurus, pterosaur, and… And i-don’t-know-saurus.
