Soapbox

April 2, 1992

So I’ve got this kid… and like most kids his age (4 1/2) he’s crazy about dinosaurs. One night I went in to check on him and heard him mutter, "..parasaurolophis..." in his sleep.

He spends so much time in his fantasy worlds, that the people in his family all have designated characters to play in those worlds. In his dinosaur world, he is Ultrasaurus, and won’t answer to any other name. I am Diplodicus, Ted is Supersaurus and his sister is "li’l Anky " (ankylosaurus). Grandma, aunts and uncles all have dino alter-egos, and he’ll go cheerfully off to bed if you tell him, "Ultrasaurus, get up to your cave now. "
But when that starts to wear thin for him (which is LONG after it has worn thin for the rest of us!) he switches to creatures from the nighttime garden on his computer game. Then he is little Cricket, I am Firefly, Katie is Moth and Dad is Mole (Dad tried to talk Cricket into letting him be Falcon instead of Mole, but Cricket would have none of it!) Well, it makes the time pass.

He is fascinated by any information that seems in any way scientific. Perhaps too fascinated? A few weeks ago, he came into my room at about 4:00 in the morning.
When I hear little feet shuffling into my room in the dark, I expect to find a mess to clean up somewhere, or at least a fever. This was a more difficult problem.
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