We have a friend who believes their child is some sort of mythical creature. I mean seriously, this kid needs sunscreen and aloe vera for their rectum because apparently that is the source of all sunshine. Sure, the kid is bright. Might even be a genius. But seriously, no one cares! It just gets old when someone acts like their kid is smarter than you are when you know they have no idea how intelligent anyone is but their own kid. It's like saying that dog crap is the best food ever, when they have never eaten anything but dog crap. No basis to compare, c'est non? And the problem comes up when the kid KNOWS the parents think they are smart - it's called
Anyway - like I was saying - she is a genius. For a 4-year-old, anyway. She is in that stage that all kids go through, you know the one - it varies in length from kid to kid, can be annoying or delightful depending on how far it goes, and could turn out to be a really boring future career since most of the stuff has been discovered already. Yup, you guessed it. Dinosaurs.
One of her holiday gifts was a bunch of dinosaur figures to play with. Just the little full-colour moulded-plastic a little bigger and better than army men type things, not really poseable or anything. Most of them have the names on the bellies, but my daughter only reads limited words right now, so Eustreptospondylus is likely a little beyond her. Heck, it is likely beyond the friend's kid too. Another thing she got for a gift was a dinosaur book for her LeapPad. Pay attention now, because all of this is important. Oh, sorry. WAKE UP. Now, pay attention, this is important. To me, of course. Not you, but heck, I don't really care.
So... over the last week or so she has asked me, "Where is my Stiggy Mulluk? I had him here, and he is gone, and I can't find him." At first I did not know what she meant and then I found out it was a dinosaur. One with a rounded dome on his head, and according to his belly he is a pachycephalosaurus. So, I thought, yeah, she has just made up some weird name like she tends to do (for example, she wants to name her new baby sibling "Jungadoo" - this kid makes up strange and unique given names for all her toys). So, for the past while, Dad has been teasing the kid - when she asks for her "Stiggy Mulluk", I reply, "Gee, I dunno where your Sticky Mollusk is." Or, the one that really got her goat, "I have not seen your Stinky MukLuks."
This inspired a conversation between my wife and I. "What the heck is a Sticky Mollusk?" she asked me. I replied it was what she calls her little dome-headed pachycephalosaurus. "Why does she call it that?" the wife inquired. I said I figured she just made something up, like she does when she names all her other "friends".
Last night I found her dinosaur under the coffee table, so today, I gave it to her and asked her why she was calling it "Stiggy Mulluk". She said, "Because it is." I was unable to pass up such an answer, so I said, "Where did you get that name? A book?" She replied, "Yes, my Leap and the Lost Dinosaur book." Thinking I was going to be able to sort things out with her finally and correct this misconception, I said, "Please go get me the book, and show me what you mean."
Off she goes, and fetches back the book by itself without the LeapPad or anything. She leafs through for a minute and says, "See Daddy? Right here." And points to a picture of a dinosaur.
A dinosaur that has a "bald" domed head, with a crown of horns around it. A bipedal dinosaur, with short T-Rex-like front legs. A dinosaur which looks identical to the plastic one in spite of the plastic one being labelled "Pachycelphalosaurus" - obviously a member of the same family. Obviously misleadingly labelled by the company that made it, AND by Dad. Because it took a 4-year-old expert to recognise what it REALLY was.
Because this dinosaur is called a Stygimoloch.
