yesterday's post about how bella would fight a kidnapper made me remember a moment she and i had at a show earlier in the month. i took she and alex to the touring Walking with Dinosaurs production (which by the way is super-great and if it comes through your town, go!).

before the day of the show i had prepared the children for what to expect. there would be life-size dinosaurs walking around but they shouldn't get scared because they were all totally fake and were robots and had people inside them controlling what they did and they wouldn't eat us. this preamble was necessary because marty terrified the kids on a water-park ride in denver called Journey to the Center of the Earth. this ride through dark tunnels had giant dinosaur heads swinging out from the walls. part of their motion involved convincing gestures of eating the occupants of the rafts zooming by. when our raft slowed at the end, both bella and alex were frazzled and shaken. given this recent experience when i first mentioned the dinosaur show to them they both shrieked saying, "NO WAY! i'm done with dinosaurs. not going!" had the tickets been inexpensive i would have skipped it, but they weren't so we were going, plus i wanted to see it. using my powers of persuasion (and promises of cotton candy) i got them on board and we went.

after the initial shock of having the lights go out and seeing the dinos enter the arena, the kids settled down and began to very much enjoy the show. alex lit up to the ones he recognized and bella gave alex warnings of action about to take place. i pointed out a funny bump on the top of one of the dinosaur heads saying it looked funny. bella in her matter-of-fact tone told me that was his nose and it was there because he was too big to run away and had to stand in water to avoid getting attacked and that 'bump' is how he breathed, like don't ya know dad?

towards the end of the show after the tyrannosaurus had been unveiled bella leaned into to me and said:

BELLA
for that one (pointing to the t-rex) i think i would need two people for each leg, four for the stomach and two, no, three for the head.

TROY
bella, what are you talking about? you mean if you had to operate the t-rex that's how many people you'd need?

BELLA
no dad, that's how many people i'd need to kill it.

i'm no child psychologist and therefore don't know what six-year old girls should be thinking on, but will stake my un-credentialed career on the point that military strategy is not an age appropriate behavior for someone wearing pigtails and eating sticky pink sugar. that said, does anyone know if west point has an elementary school and if so, are they taking late applications.