Okay, Myron turned 3 a couple of months ago, but most of this still applies.

Myron is obsessed with dinosaurs now. For his birthday, he got a dinosaur helmet cover, many dinosaur books, and multiple sets of dinosaur figurines and dinosaurs with wheels, which were a sort of “missing link” between a previous favorite obsession and this one – not that he needed a gradual transition. Dinosaurs are a theme among his peers in daycare, and Myron picked this up and perpetuated it with abandon. As I write this, we are on vacation, and Myron is watching TV on a rainy day. There’s some cartoon show involving a kid bat, rabbit, and elephant on PBS Kids, but Myron is asking to watch dinosaurs. Lately he has insisted on bringing his diplodocus figure to bed with him. However, Myron’s favorite dinosaur is the T. rex. At one point, Myron thought that T. rex and tyrannosaurus rex were different dinosaurs, but I think he now understands that they are the same. At home, Myron likes to pretend to be a dinosaur, and he almost always picks T. rex. Then he instructs me or Em to be a different dinosaur, which used to sometimes be a tyrannosaurus, but lately has mostly been something else like a triceratops, spinosaurus, or parasaurolophus.

Myron started to greet the daycare front desk admin, Mr. Jeremy, with a roar every morning, and Jeremy would pretend to be scared in his characteristically low-key fashion. One morning as we were walking into the building, I prompted Myron that he could roar at Mr. Jeremy, but Jeremy wasn’t at his desk. Myron got a little upset, but then we saw Mr. Jeremy walking back up the hall toward his desk. He stopped in the hallway for Myron to roar at him, but Myron pointed at his desk chair and indicated that Mr. Jeremy should sit in his usual place for Myron to roar at him. Then Myron began roaring at other parents coming and going from daycare pickup and dropoff. They usually laugh. Lately, Myron has been going up to strangers and roaring at them. For the most part, people find it amusing. Sometimes they don’t pay attention, and Em has mentioned that some people seem slightly annoyed by it.

Once, Myron and I were walking to the pharmacy, and we came upon another kid who was carrying a dinosaur toy in a wagon. I asked what her favorite dinosaur was, and she said, “T. rex.” Myron then replied, “No, T. rex is my favorite dinosaur!”

We all came down with COVID. After isolating for about 2 weeks, we went on a major adventure: taking the commuter rail to a dinosaur safari in Boston – involving animatronic dinosaurs. This was also the first full-size train ride Myron had been on. Previously, we had only been on a couple of miniature trains together. So it was mind-blowing on two fronts. Em thought it might have been too much and overwhelm Myron, but it turned out to be just right. He ran around naming all the dinosaurs, even some relatively obscure ones like iguanodon and pachycephalosaurus. Myron and I head-butted in front of the pachycephalosaurus. In front of one of the large dinosaurs, another adult visitor came up to it, and Myron said, “Watch out. It might eat you!”.

Then we had lunch and ice cream, and Myron visited the giant spinosaurus outside of the exhibit.

On our way back to the train station, we passed by a brass band who played “Baby Face” for Myron. At one point, one of the trumpet players started tapping her knee, and Myron did this as well.

Then Myron passed out in the stroller before we boarded the train.

Click through to the post to see Myron blowing out the candles on his dinosaur birthday cake with our friends Shawn and Natalie.