We took Maya to the natural history museum in Washington D.C. on the last day of our trip to the U.S. so she could see the dinosaurs. We also took her to the air and space museum to see the airplanes. But it was the dinosaurs that caught her interest. Now she wants to understand why the dinosaurs died, and she is not satisfied with my explanation... no matter how many different ways I explain it.
She really liked the idea that she was seeing dinosaur bones. And she totaly understands the concept of bones now. She knows that there are bones inside her, just like there are bones in dinosaurs. It is pretty cool to see her grasp that concept.
We tried to explain to her that the dinosaurs died because of climate change -- and that they didn't have air conditioning or heat like we have so they got very uncomfortable when the climate changed and then died. Then she asked why the climate changed ... and we tried to explain the asteroid theory. And then she is back to "But why they died, mommy?".
So I tried to explain the concept of being extremely uncomfortable. Like how she doesn't like to get in the car if it has been sitting in the sun, but that it is OK once daddy turns on the air conditioner. But imagine if we didn't have air conditioning in the car, or heating in our home (well, Maya has not really experienced extreme cold so we just focused on heat). But no matter how many times we tried, we were back to: "Why dinosaurs died?"
We did get her two dinosaur books at the museum, but sadly neither one explains why dinosaurs died... One does show a T-rex attacking and then devouring a triceratops though. Guess mommy's quick perusal of that book was a bit lacking! We had to do some quick editing and page flipping last night at bedtime when I tried to read that book to Maya as a bedtime story. Ooops!
