Each six weeks in the second grade Cabell becomes engrossed in the study theme. The center of his universe has rotated from arachnids to amphibians to, literally, the sun during his study of our solar system. This six weeks his daily conversation is filled with details about the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. His special favorite dinosaurs are Apatosaurus and Diplodicus, but he is generally partial to all of the saurpods. He draws pencil and marker landscapes featuring Brachiosaurus and Velociraptors surrounded by billowing volcanoes and giant ferns.
One evening he called downstairs to say he was taking a shower. I was somewhat surprised by his voluntary bathing, but finished cleaning up from dinner before going upstairs to check on him. When I arrived at our shower door I cracked it open and peered into the steamy interior. Cabell was crouched on the floor with the spray of water from the shower head raining down on him. Water droplets dangled from his nose and ears and tiny rivulets meandered down his back. In this tropical paradise a colony of rubber dinosaurs had been revitalized. Tyrannosaurus rexes in a variety of colors from mauve to turquoise were co-habitating pleasantly with tricerotops, duckbills and a stegasaurus under Cabell’s watchful eye.
Cab looked up at me in the doorway, “I’m playing,” he explained.
“I see,” I said.
“Watch!” he demanded as he picked up the mean looking brown and olivegreen T. rex. “If this bull T. rex starts acting bad I just push him over the ledge,” he said as he demonstrated T. rex backing off the soap shelf in the shower and plunging to certain temporary death on the floor tiles.
“I bet it takes a firm hand to keep T. rex in line,” I replied. “Please inform him that right now it is bedtime for all boys and dinos.”
“Not yet!” he protested.
I gave him the two minute warning and in the alotted time returned with his pajamas. That night he tossed out the dinosaurs to bath mat extinction. On subsequent evenings he has returned to the shower for fifteen minutes of dinosaur drama and has taken to leaving the creatures in the shower over night.
Now at 6 am when I crawl into the shower to start my day I find myself surrounded by duckbills in the corner and T. rexes scattered about the floor. Brachiosaurus tends to hang out around the soap dish. I’ll push them around with my toe and get through the shower without mishap.
At 6:23 am I’ll wake up my husband. “Time to get up,” I say shaking his shoulder. Then I bend over and whisper into his ear, “Keep your eye on T. rex this morning. Not the turquoise and gray one in the corner. He’s in time out and he won’t bother you. The dangerous one is the blue and gray one on the shampoo shelf. He looks like he’s sleeping, but it’s just a possumosaur trick. If he roars at you just push him off the soap ledge. It works for Cabell everytime.”