Dinosaur Matching

Andy does not like to nap. Recently, we have decided to just feed him at 5 and put him in bed instead of trying to get a screaming mass into his room for a nap after lunch. He needs this because if he gets grumpy, he tends to hit first and ask questions later. I would work on a 2pm nap, which would work very well, except that I am rarely in the house at 2 o'clock because of Joey's therapies, and will not be in the house at 2 o'clock all summer long.

Taking him up at 5 includes his bath, where he misses his brother, then stories. IF he is still awake at 7 when we bring up Joey, he gets another story. They usually involve dinosaurs or Karma Wilson. I also have some fabric books I've sewn up, which he often uses as pillows.

As part of the dinosaur fascination (infatuation?) I have pinned up some pictures of dinosaurs on Andy's room. A good friend sent them to us a while ago. Andy was absolutely thrilled when he saw them. He likes to point at them and tell me what they all are- and since I have learned what they are, I can decipher his attempts at articulation. Practice makes perfect, right?

Yesterday I put Andy upstairs with some stories, but all was not well. Andy started to really lose it, so back up the stairs I went. What was wrong? All I could decipher was "Edmontonia!"

For those of you who may be dinosaur=challenged, and edmontonia is a type of ankylosaur- a tankish, armoured thing with shoulder spikes and a clubby tail. It happens to be one of Andy's favorites. He held out the fabric book I made, based on postage stamps of dinosaurs, open to the edmontonia page. He was inconsolable.

I went into the room and sat with him as he tried to explain the problem, in sentences that were completely unintelligible despite beautiful and meaningful inflection. Edmontonia... t-rex... allosaurus... diplodocus...

Then I realize he's pointing, not just waving his arm. I look down at the book. Then I look up at the wall, where he is pointing at the pictures. Though the backgrounds are different, the actual dinosaur is the same- the pictures are probably the stamps, and the book takes the dinosaur, and photoshops it into a brighter jungle backdrop. However, not all of the dinosaurs on the wall are in teh book- and vice versa. Edmontonia is in the book, so he is looking for it on the wall- and it isn't there.

Good news: Andy is matching!
Bad news: I have no idea where to get a picture of an edmontonia, much less the exact one in his book, to put on the wall.