You can just imagine how stoked the boys and I were when we learned that they were bringing dinosaurs to one of our local theatres. Okay, so they weren't actually real dinosaurs, but the premise of the show was that they were, and the lovely handlers were there to teach us all about these amazing animals much like a show one might see at the zoo.
And holy cow, was this a fun show with some incredibly like-like puppet dinosaurs. At least one went a bit mad and started attacking the children who had volunteered to help on stage and then the children in the audience, many of whom were left screaming and clutching to whichever adult was closest to them. (Elliot, who had been very brave and sat by himself on the floor by the stage, had skooched himself back until he had pinned a dad between him and the first row of seats. Meanwhile, Ollie was on my lap whimpering and strangling me with his bear hug while I kept repeating "Remember, they are just puppets. Look at T-Rex's legs. They are man's legs, and he's wearing combat boots.")
I even got volunteered to go on stage and help with one of the prehistoric creatures, only the creature I was helping with wasn't a dinosaur, but a metre-long dragonfly-like insect that landed on my head. The boys loved it.
At the end of the show, all the kids were invited to come down to stage to pat some of the dinosaurs, and it was so precious to watch them approach these puppets with such apprehension and wonder as if they really were actual dinosaurs. It was awesome.
