There's a WHAT in the yard?

Our morning routine is pretty predicable. I get up, I shower, I wake Noah, we go downstairs, I make breakfast, he eats breakfast and watches a cartoon while I eat breakfast and check my email before leaving, and take care of a little bit of home business, including cleaning up the kitchen. Occasionally, Noah wakes up early and blows the plan slightly -- this was one of those mornings. So he prods me awake by dragging his Coca-Cola polarbear clock into the bed with me to tell me "the hand is on the 4, so it's time to wake up." The FOUR? Oops, forgot to move the clock forward, and yes, it is in fact between 5 and 6 -- but "time to wake up?"

I cajole him into watching BETWEEN THE LIONS for 20 minutes while I get a little more sleep -- after all, the adrenaline rush I experience after fencing on Thursday nights normally means that I don't get to sleep until unnaturally late; being awakened before 6 is just cruel. He acquiesces. I snooze. BETWEEN THE LIONS is over, it's 6:20. I'm up. We go downstairs. I make breakfast.

Now I have to do the "leave child alone downstairs while I go up and shower" fandango, which is a little stressful. Noah hasn't ever been an escape-from-the-house-unsupervised artist, but that doesn't mean he won't TRY it one morning. I set up WALKING WITH DINOSAURS for him to watch; he likes the disc where the man goes back in time and is chased by dinosaurs, in particular the episode where he goes down in a diving cage and is attacked by a protoshark. I sneak upstairs to get cleaned up and ready for work.

A few minutes later, I'm just about to get into the shower, and I hear not just noise, but actual crying screaming downstairs. I throw clothes back on and dash madly downstairs. "I have to show you something!" he wails, and drags me by the arm urgently to the window. "There's a DINOSAUR in the front yard!"

I look out the window. Now, perhaps I failed to mention that after fencing last night, I arrived home to the big fuscia notice at the entrance to our pipestem that "they" would be repaving the road starting at 7am, and so ended up parking 4 blocks away on the main road, schlepping my equipment, bag with clothes, briefcase, take-out dinner, and purse back to the house at 9:30, muttering about what a pain in the butt this was going to be. Now it's 7:10. An lo, here are the guys with the big machines, tearing up the road. And I had not considered it until I saw it with my son's eyes, but one of the pieces of equipment looks shockingly like a brontosaurus. Another looks amazingly like a tyranosaurus rex. It's true. And when you're four, and you've never seen this before, and it's right in front of your house, well, I guess it's pretty darned shocking. Because unlike the ones at the museum, these are MOVING AROUND. DOING THINGS. TO OUR ROAD. LIKE TEARING IT UP. DINOSAURS! ARE EATING! OUR ROAD!

Eventually I got him to calm down. Can't wait to hear what he tells his class today at school! "Really? Dinosaurs ATE YOUR ROAD?"

I love seeing the world through his eyes.