Our son Jones is almost two and a half years old, and he is positively electrified by the creatures.
The idea of them are the current that runs through his body. His sun and moon. His east and west. They are spinning and shining and thumping and roaring through his days, they are everything he wants his universe to be. And so, on a cold morning in the disorienting limbo between Christmas and New Year’s, we took him to the Royal Ontario Museum.
Standing there as we entered, Jones twisting in his jacket to get free from my grip and and run to the “BIG DINOSAUR!”, I was hoping that my son might grow to love museums. I imagined him retreating into them over the course of his life the way he might a lake, emerging nourished and restored after each encounter. Sanctuaries of rich, wide spaces and cool tile. All the marvels of history respectfully arrayed before him, and always, he would have the sense of being somewhere else, a place just outside of time, and of being suspended right before a great mystery that was both his life and not his life.
And then he spun free and ran out into the great hall.
He was just so excited.
He tore from one wonder to the next, identifying each one as best he could. It was astounding to watch. He was a fever. A pinball. A waterfall. A million monkeys typing. I swear to you that he was glowing, he really was.
Watching, I wondered why our children, all so innocent and vulnerable, were attracted to the creatures we consider the most terrible and dangerous? Why run into the jaws of a dinosaur? Why the darkness? And all of the parents there, each one smiling through whatever weight it was their burden to carry, were likely pondering some variant of the same question as they watched their miracles of light streak so beautifully through the museum.
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It was a pretty busy day, and in almost no time at all I found myself separated from Rachelle and Jones. These are the texts from my wife that followed:
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Rachelle: Where are you?
Rachelle: The Bat Cave?! That sounds dramatic!!
Rachelle: Really? That’s weird!
Rachelle: I thought it would have something to do with Batman, too. Maybe a tribute to Adam West or something.
Rachelle: Adam West.
Rachelle: He just died.
Rachelle: He was the original Batman.
Rachelle: No, Michael Keaton was not the original batman.
Rachelle: Thought for sure you’d know that.
Rachelle: Well, because you’re seasoned.
Rachelle: That’s not an insult.
Rachelle: Seasoned things are delicious.
Rachelle: Like Ikea meatballs.
Rachelle: I still can’t believe you ate 19 of them that one day .
Rachelle: Yes, it was very impressive, very alpha male.
Rachelle: However, if you’d pushed through to 20 it would have been even more alpha, I think.
Rachelle: Just saying.
Rachelle: Where are we? How nice of you to ask!
Rachelle: We’re in the kid’s play area, right near the tepee.
Rachelle: I have discovered that medieval headgear is really heavy!
Rachelle: What have you learned in the bat cave besides the fact that Michael Keaton was not the original Batman?
Rachelle: And beside the fact that you’re old.
Rachelle: Bats eat mice like you eat meatballs.
Rachelle: Pickle, I am glad that you can still learn new things.
Rachelle: Sorry?
Rachelle: Why don’t you want Jones in the tepee?
Rachelle: Cultural appropriation?
Rachelle: No, I don’t hate my First Nation’s brothers and sisters.
Rachelle: The tepee was just a nice, quiet spot for Jones to sit and colour for a bit, that’s all.
Rachelle: I mean, it is expressly there for the kid’s to use!
Rachelle: You don’t know what the Great Spirit wanted! Perhaps that’s exactly what the Great Spirit wished for!
Rachelle: Lord, you have to spend less time on Twitter.
Rachelle: I swear, people should have to take a test before they get on that thing–like kids having to be a certain height before going on a ride.
Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, but you’re just too suggestible.
Rachelle: Last week you were insisting the Russians were cyborgs.
Rachelle: Regardless, it’s not a “cultural appropriation” tepee, but more of a “spirit guide” tepee.
Rachelle: I had a vision when I was in there.
Rachelle: Of Justin Trudeau.
Rachelle: He was dressed in his tepee denims and smelled of pine needles.
Rachelle: Shirt?
Rachelle: No, just the jean jacket.
Rachelle: Yes, unbuttoned.
Rachelle: I know. Yes, you and some other kids beat him up in grade school.
Rachelle: You know, that’s probably something you shouldn’t be so proud of.
Rachelle: No, you couldn’t.
Rachelle: No, you simply could not do a plank– no matter how much you trained or hard you tried.
Rachelle: It’s like the 20th meatball for you, a bridge you shall never cross.
Rachelle: Oh, no!
Rachelle: He didn’t speak at all, he just smiled at me, and when he did I knew that everything was going to be fine. Sunny ways everywhere!
Rachelle: Oh! I think I see you Pickle!
Rachelle: Do you see us?
Rachelle: Look! Jones has a dinosaur he wants to show you! He’s running to you now, our little sunny way is running right to you!
