The story of George.

Let me tell you the story of George. George is a dinosaur. He was hatched from an egg that Uncle Joey had bought Gracie when we were on vacation. Space in the luggage being tight, I had to jettison the egg, and so it traveled by post and arrived in Gracie’s hands about two months ago. Two weeks ago, I finally gave in to the pleading of my wee little ones and let them place the dinosaur egg in a jar full of water. I screwed the lid on tightly and the girls eagerly awaited the hatching of their dinosaur.

That was the beginning of George. The egg sat in the jar and the jar sat on the kitchen table, where it was mercilessly stared down by Gracie and Bee. They fought over whether the jar was positioned closer to one sister or the other and quickly tattled if either of them dared to touch it when my back was turned. They checked on George’s progress every few minutes and squealed with delight over every crack and fissure.
“Look! Mom! A TAIL!! He has a TAIL!”
“I can see his EYE BALL, Mom!”
“He’s hatching!”
Never has a dinosaur brought so much fun (or bribery) to the dinner table.

George finished hatching and grew and grew (and grew!) in the jar o’ water. The girls still loved to watch him or put the jar in the sunlight so George would be happy. But to me, that jar seemed to keep growing and growing (and growing!) until it was the only thing I could see in the kitchen. It was getting on my nerves and seemed to be everywhere. It was time for George to go.

The problem was, the girls would never dream of letting me get rid of their pet dinosaur. They loved him! And he loved them! Quietly disposing of the jar (and George) was out of the question. What was a poor Momma to do? She came up with a devious plan, that’s what. And so my plan was hatched – we were going to liberate George.

“Girls, I think it’s time to set George free. He’s gotten to be a pretty big dinosaur and now he wants to go into the wild.” Bee’s eyes grew so big!
“He will live owt-side?” she asked?
“Uhhh…yes. In the woods,” I answered.
Gracie was easy: “Cool!” she yelled, and ran to get the jar.

So out we tramped to the patio out back and I unscrewed the lid and poured out all the water. I had envisioned letting George slide out of the jar where he would sunbathe on the patio until the girls fell asleep. Then I could deep-six him. Unfortunately, George was a big dinosaur, bigger than I thought; that sucker wasn’t sliding out of anywhere.
“Mom, stop! His tail is going to come off!” Gracie screeched. Indeed, it was.
“Don’t worry. He’s like a gecko. His tail will grow right back,” I ad-libbed.
I left George inside his jar, happy as could be and settled for putting the jar down on the ground with the lid in front of it. “George doesn’t want to come out, girls. I think he’s shy. Maybe we should leave him alone and he will come out when he’s ready.” Of course that meant we walked into the house, closed the door, and they immediately glued their faces to the other side of the glass, watching. That’s the Casa de Katie interpretation of leaving someone alone, let me tell you.

Eventually, the girls lost interest after I refused to give them food to leave out for him. (If you’re wondering, George eats ants [you should see the swarm that was gathering around his sticky self] and cheese. Then Gracie totally busted me by declaring that Hello, George was a dinosaur and so he was obviously an herbivore. So George also eats leaves.) The girls slowly unglued themselves from their place smooshed up against the windows and went off to play. After they had finally fallen asleep, I braved the circus of fire ants and rescued George from a slow painful death. Instead he got to asphyxiate in a tightly-sealed bag in my garbage bin. But don’t tell my girls that, mkay?

The next morning, I expected the girls to race back to the windows to check on George, so of course what really happened is that they had forgotten all about him. I finally had to ask Gracie if it looked like it was raining outside. “Hey! George is gone!” Bright, that one. Now they flew to the windows and then outside, looking for George.
“He’s gone to the woods,” I said. “Now you’ll have someone to protect you.”
Their eyes were so wide, not quite sure whether to believe me, but I noticed both of them scoured the trees when we drove to daycare, looking for George.

Truth is – I kinda miss him, too.

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Tags: make-believe, parenting, pets