The dino zoo

Day 14 of 31 at TWT!

"What's the big dino that says 'rawr'?" Rainbow Girl has been leaning over her booster seat towards Sis's chair beside her, chattering about her dinosaur chicken nuggets. 

"Um, T Rex?"

"No, the big dino that said 'rawr' at the dino zoo!"

"Ohh, the one that said 'hi' to us?" I know she's remembering when I took her around the corner to peek at some of the animatronic dinosaurs before we rode the dino boat ride at our zoo for the first time, in hopes she'd be less afraid of them than Sis was at her age. "That's Apatosaurus, with the big long neck!" I point out an apatosaurus nugget. "He was so friendly!" I remember trying to enthusiastically talk up how he was a nice dino who was saying hi, so she wouldn't follow in her sister's footsteps of being terrified during the  the gentle boat ride, clinging to our hands and muttering "friendly.... friendly...". (Despite being generally more hesitant of the world in general, little sis was actually much braver in this particular instance!)

"Yeah!" She giggles at sticks out her legs in excitement. "He said hi! I saw him with YOU!" She points a little finger at me, remembering the same moment I'd just pictured.

"That right! I had so much fun peeking at him with you!" I love how she remembers such little details so clearly.

"Can we go to that zoo sometime again?"

"Of course! I love going to the zoo!"

"Not the playground zoo. The dino zoo."

"Oh, it's the same zoo!" I giggle. "It's all our zoo. It's just very big, so we go to different parts on different days!" Our zoo is huge, with so many unique regions, and I can see how to her, it seems like each part might be an entirely different place. 

"Ohhhh yeah!" She opens her blue eyes wide and nods her head vigorously like she does when she's trying to show her understanding of something. "I like the playground zoo! And the dino zoo!" She starts making her apatosaurus nugget talk to her in an adorable falsetto. "Hi! I'm friendly!"

"Yeah, it's all one zoo! I like all the parts of our zoo! It's very fun!" I love when she shares these glimpses of how the world looks to her: separate zoos, perfectly preserved memory moments, and talking dino nuggets.