Anyone familiar with www.sybermoms.com (one of the greatest boards I've ever hung out on) knows that only the LUCKIEST parents have RARE children. RARE, I tell you!

The other day, my lil' guy, enticed by the big T-rex on the cover, began a campaign to see Jurassic Park. While he's seen a ton of Discovery Channel specials with dinosaurs fighting each other, ripping flesh from carcasses, and even some tastefully shot dinosaur reproduction (is my child the only one who draws his sauropods with egg chutes coming down to the ground?), I still felt uneasy that the scenes of people being chomped in half and kids terrorized by velociraptors might just be a little too much for him. Still he persisted in his campaign, and since he's not prone to any sorts of regular childhood fears, we figured we'd give it a shot. (He's also well-versed in how movies use special effects, living with two animators, so he knows the dinosaurs aren't real)

We sat down as a family, and put the movie on. The opening scene features the luckless worker being chowed upon by a velociraptor (One of the best things on the first Austin Powers DVD is all the deleted scenes about how no one considers the poor henchmen's families). DS wasn't scared at all--he wants us to explain how all the fencing and gates work. Fast forward to the scene in the badlands, where they are excavating a velociraptor skeleton. Now, DS looks at the screen confused. "Hey! They weren't that big!" he says indignently. "Which dinosaur *was* that big?" asks Dean. "Utahraptor," says DS without a pause.

A few boring exposition scenes later we're at the point where the helicopter lands at the water. "Is there going to be an Elasmosaurus or a Dunkleosteus?" "Uh, no honey." They drive into the park and see the brachiosaurus eating leaves. DS says "Are they going to see a Seismosaurus too?" "Uh, no honey." The kid spent the entire movie slightly disappointed in how few dinosaurs were actually IN the park! As for the scenes I was worried about him watching, he thinks the guy sitting on the toilet was hilarious b/c of the guy trying to stay on the toilet, and the scene with the kids in the kitchen is fun because of the way the raptors go around checking everything out.

Dean's going to take him down to NYC in the near future to go see the Museum of Natural History. I can only imagine the discussions we'll be having in our house after that!