Playing Dinosaur Charades

Somebody once mentioned her child wanted to play charades, of dinosaurs no less. I never thought that it would happen to me.

El, the boy who loves dinosaurs, suddenly announced we were playing dinosaur charades, and started acting like a dancing chicken and said ‘pretty jaw’.

“Pretty jaw? Sounds familiar. I was just playing the brain box game with him,” I thought.

“Is it gallimimus?” I asked, taking a gamble.

“No,” he replied with a slight frown.

He then told me it was a Compsognathus.

Oh. I thought he was done, when he started stomping around and roared.

Ah, this was easy, I thought.

“T-Rex,” I enthusiastically said it aloud.

“No!”

“Give me some clues,” I asked, as I continued to watch the goggle box which someone just called it the idiot box the day before.

“It has a thumb,” he said.

Still clueless, so I asked what the name means.

“Ok, it means iguana tooth,” he chirped, with enthusiasm still unwavering.

“Iguanodon!”

“Correct. Next,” he said and got on all fours.

He moved very slowly, and as he moved his bottom, I had the impression that there was a heavy tail, perhaps one that was clubbed, and could kill predators.

“Anggkylours,” I guessed or whatever it was pronounced. It was a spiky armored dinosaur.

“Ankylosaurus, but no. It was from that family though.”

He mumbled something which I could not recall. If you must know, I am currently writing this recount with the help of google.

He was not done. He acted again and this time round, I guessed it was a sauropod (four-legged, long neck, long tail, relatively small head in proportion) as he was on all fours. Occasionally, he looked up and stretched his neck to reach for higher branches.

Shucks, I remembered watching Dinosaur Train where they showcased different sauropods. Some kept their necks up and reached the higher branches while others kept their necks low (diplodocus), depending on the type of necks they had.

I could not think of any sauropods, and so I asked for the first letter.

“B,” he shouted.

“Erm, baryonyx,” I said, forgetting I had just seen it earlier when I was googling information on different vores.

“No! Baryonyx was a piscivore. It ate fish,” he explained.

“Erm, brac…” I muttered.

“It’s brachiosaurus,” he said after I kept trying to say it.

One more. He held his two arms up and stretched them and flapped his wings. He even said ‘rawk’, which was the sound made by the main characters in Dinosaur Train.

“Ptero… Pteranodon!” I shouted excitedly as I finally got one correct.

Charades with children was tough enough but charades about dinosaurs were even tougher! Where is he going to find a friend to play dinosaur charades with him?