Jackson

A drive-thru dinosaur exhibit was coming to town, one with life-size replicas that move and make sounds, too. It sounded pretty cool for a socially distanced event, but after the mess at the library I was worried Jackson would be terrified and it’d be a waste of money.

But seeing as we don’t have very many options for outings this summer, I figured we should give it a shot. And the dino event at the library was good preparation — now we know what to do better the second time around.

And this time, Jackson was super excited and had a lot of fun. He was scared at first when he saw the dinosaurs from far away, but quickly warmed up to it. Plus this time I sat in the back next to him (somehow I was able to wedge myself in between two car seats!), and I also took Beckham out and onto my lap so he didn’t fuss either.

Aside from a terrible blowout and having to put Beckham on the console to change/clean him/me, the day was a success!!

Our library had a super cute dinosaur event, COVID-style in the parking lot. They had various stations set up and you could drive by each one without getting out of your car. Something new and different to go experience, yet safe enough for even my comfort level.

But it went about as poorly as it could go.

First there was a bit of a line, and once the car stopped moving, Beckham started screaming. I ended up getting out to rock him and walked alongside our car at the same time.

Then, at the very first station, they had someone wearing one of those blow-up T-Rex costumes. Jackson totally freaked out. He was terrified when it was our turn to pull up and the guy started coming towards our car (he didn’t even get that close before realizing what was happening).

“Roll the window up!!” Jackson was yelling in between sobs.

We tried to quickly go to the next station but Jackson couldn’t really recover. There another worker asked him if he wanted to play a toss game. Jackson said no, still crying. He did manage to get out a little “roar” when this guy asked him what sound dinosaurs make, but again we quickly sped off to the next station.

The next spot had various dinosaurs on display, although I don’t think Jackson could really see any of it since he was still in his car seat. Off we went again.

At the next stop, a lady read a dinosaur story to Jackson (six feet away, through the window). This section went the best, as Jackson had calmed down. (The orange dinosaur — the T-Rex — had made Soldier Teddy Bear nervous, he told us.)

But then the book ended abruptly with the dinosaur eating the main character. It was very odd. Why they chose that book is beyond me!

Finally the last section was another display but we didn’t even bother stopping. By this point we all couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

It was a neat event in theory, just didn’t work for us this time around, haha.