The Bub in the Belly

It befuddles me why we study dinosaurs in such great detail. It's not as if we have ever seen one, nor will we ever. Yet we know their names, we know what they ate and we know how they lived.

I have no particular fondness for dinosaurs but I do think they are the perfect toy for boys. Boys like stuff which give them a chance to show how knowledgeable they are. Be it electronic gadgets, watches or sports, boys can recite all manner of trivia and facts about their toys, and the more trivia they can recite, the happier they are. Just as a love of cars is fuelled by nuggets of information about how many seconds this particular car takes to go from 0 to 100 km, what the rate of petrol consumption is for that car, what the best brand of tyres to buy are and which petrol to use, dinosaurs can also provide hours of joy with endless trivia about what this dinosaur could do, what features it had, what it used its long neck or its heavy tail for, how fast it could travel. Boys just lap it all up.

Now, girls don't bother about these details and data and information. They are just interested in how the dinosaur looks and sounds, whether it is big and scary or not, and whether there are any baby dinosaurs. After they get past that, well, that's about it. They move on to fairies and mermaids and unicorns. They don't need to know what the mermaid ate, how she used her tail to help propel her through the sea or what sort of house she lived in or how she gave birth or how she peed and pooed. All that is completely unnecessary.

Now that may sound stereotypical, and you probably know some girls who love dinosaurs and some boys who love Barbie. Still, stereotypical as it may be, it is generally true.

Well Ryan hasn't reached the age when he can gobble up and spew out all those facts and factoids. He hasn't shown any special interest in dinosaurs (yet). We got him the "Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs" book and toy boxed set - the book comes with a blue bucket and six little dinosaurs - but he was just interested in the bucket. He wouldn't even let me put the dinosaurs in the bucket.

To give the dinosaurs a fair chance to win Ryan's heart, we took Ryan to watch Walking With Dinosaurs on Sunday.

It was a fantastic experience. The dinosaurs were incredibly realistic and believable. Although I have nothing to compare them with, it was probably as close as we'll ever get to seeing live dinosaurs. There was an actor who introduced each dinosaur to the audience - he told us its name and explained its features and how it lived and what period it lived in (Jurassic, Triassic, etc.) - but I can't recall much of that now (I'm a girl remember? All that is completely unnecessary.).

At the Singapore Indoor Stadium

Ryan's reaction? He watched carefully and intently and I heard him make some "oohs" and "aahs", so I think he had a good time. 15 minutes from the end, he had enough - he snuggled into my bosom for his milk and promptly went to sleep. That was when the Tyrannosaurus Rex came out, and when the TRex started roaring, Ryan just closed his eyes more tightly! Oh well, the show was 1 hour and 40 minutes long, and there were 20 dinosaurs in total, so I think Ryan got his fill. Richard and I certainly enjoyed ourselves. My jaw actually dropped when the TRex came out, haha!

Momma TRex and baby TRex

Great show, we're definitely buying tickets when it comes around again. There will probably be even more dinosaurs (the show originally had 15, now they have 20) and the animatronics will only get better.

After the show, we went for lunch at Taste Paradise at Funan the Digitalife Mall and then it was off to Shichida. After that, we drove across to Sentosa Cove to attend Angelynn's son's first birthday party. Angelynn is putting up in one of those sea-facing bungalows on Sentosa - the place was beautiful and spacious and reminded us of a resort. Ryan spent most of the party in the swimming pool, together with the rest of the children.