R.A. Crawford's Blog: Laugh In The Face Of Dadversity

A while back, Kayla and I answered some questions from our friends about how our debut novel, ‘What Can We Be?’ came to life. Things have been a little crazy since then, but as a big ol’ thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed our book, here are some of our answers!

I’m sure you have a lot of ideas for books, what made you commit to this one?

RYAN: I sure do. Too many in fact. Every experience in life usually ends with me jotting down a note about what a great book it would make. But this idea was different. I was playing with my daughter, pretending to be superheroes, and had a real lightbulb moment. And it wasn’t just, “I wanna write about this moment.” It was — “I wanna connect with other dads who must be having moments like this too.”

I’m sure you get a lot of requests, so what made you decide to draw this book?

KAYLA: The thing that stood out about Ryan’s story was that it, and he, had a huge heart. He loves his kids and wanted to create something that celebrated the time they spend together, but was also a super fun adventure that anyone could enjoy. Having similar memories with my Dad I could relate to the story, and his words made my imagination run wild with illustration ideas. It was an easy yes from me!

How did you come up with the storyline?

RYAN: My daughter, Kiara, has A LOT of dress up stuff. I imagine this is the case for a lot of dads out there, but she really does have the resources to dress up as anything. Superheroes, astronauts, fairies, mermaids. You name it, she’s got it. Whether its store-bought or tied together with string and cardboard, she has an outfit for every occasion. But it was her that taught me how just dressing the part wasn’t enough. You also had to really BELIEVE you were a superhero, if the game was going to work. That’s where I got the idea of reality versus imagination.

How did you come up with the illustrations for each of the scenes?

KAYLA: A lot of the illustrations are based on my own childhood imaginary adventures. My Dad would bring cardboard boxes home from work and I’d turn them into cars, spaceships, restaurants — you name it! He also used to fold pirate hats out of newspaper and we’d wear them while pretend-fishing off the bed (aka the swashbuckling pirate ship). I loved playing dress ups as a kid, so there’s no scenario in this book that I haven’t tried and tested.

How long does it take you to write a rhyme you’re happy with?

RYAN: I AM NEVER HAPPY WITH ANY OF THE RHYMES! Really though, I don’t know if this is the case for every author but for me it takes forever. I’ve never written rhymes before this book. So I didn’t even have a technique really. When I first began, I was googling for words that rhymed with something I had just ended a sentence with. I very quickly realised that does not work AT ALL. And instead started creating alternate versions of each line, then just letting it play around in my head for a few hours. I’d do some other work, play with the kids, talk to the wife then BOOM. 3 hours later. The perfect rhyme shows up in my head. Ideas and solutions tend to hit me when I’m not thinking about them.

How long does it take you to illustrate a whole page?

KAYLA: Depends on the page! From initial concept to finished drawing could take anywhere from 5 to 10 hours, but illustrating a book is a hugely collaborative effort, so in addition to my drawing time there was a lot of back and forth between Ryan and I. Every sketch, scribble, colour or idea was sent halfway across the world to get the tick of approval from both of us. All up it took us a few months to get all the illustrations just right.

What do you eat, drink, listen to, watch while you’re drawing/writing?

KAYLA: I drink A LOT of tea while I draw (yes, even during our scorching Australian summer), but if I’m in the zone I usually forget about it and end up drinking it cold. In terms of what I listen to and watch, I go through phases. For What Can We Be? I listened to an absurd number of Disney soundtracks and got weirdly obsessed with the UK cooking show Come Dine With Me. Now every time I read the book I hear the Pirates of the Caribbean theme in my head and imagine hosting the ultimate dinner party to win £1,000.

RYAN: When it comes to drink I’m actually really boring. I literally only drink water. When someone asks me to go for a coffee they get a mad at me because I just sit and stare at them while they drink. I usually listen to songs from soundtracks when I work. It could be a movie or video game soundtrack. For this book, the Moana soundtrack had more or less taken over my life anyway. So if you sing, “How Far I’ll Go,” while you read the book, you’re pretty much living in my head. If the TV is on when I’m working it HAS to be something I’ve seen 1000 times already. That means re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ALL DAY LONG.

What are your hopes for the book?

KAYLA: I hope it encourages kids to dream big and let their imagination run free, and reminds some of us adults to have a play once in a while! Most of all, I just hope it spreads some smiles.

RYAN: I want people to read this book and have exactly 1 of 2 reactions. For the parent or child to either say “this is just like the games we play” or “we should totally try this out!” This project is about spreading fun, imagination and love. And you can’t measure that, you can only feel it. And hope that others do too.

Kayla is the dream creative partner. So you can rest assured we’re not done yet. Watch this space. And don’t forget, if you place an order on Kayla’s website before the end of the month, 100% of your cash will go towards Aussie Bushfire Relief!

Thanks for reading everyone!

I had plenty of ideas on how the book should look. But Kayla had real IDEAS on how to bring it to life. From day one.

For example. I began by sending Kayla a storyboard I’d been working on. It was more or less just the rhymes, with a quick description of what I’d like to show the characters doing on each page. Only the pages where the girls were in their roles had images attached. And even those were just quick finds from google images. The rest was entirely still to be defined.

Take a look for yourselves:

This is exactly what I gave Kayla to work with…Along with this extraordinarily vague description of what was happening in each scene.

As you can see, originally I planned to simply have big images of the girls doing all their imaginative play. It wasn’t until Kayla and I got started emailing ideas back and forth, and reflecting on our own experiences, that we happened upon the concept of having imagination on the left page and reality on the right.

And considering that contrast of visuals went on to define the structure of our whole book, that was a pretty important and awesome discussion! It was exactly why I was looking for someone like Kayla to team-up with and our partnership has been a hit from pretty much day one.

When I saw those little helmet pigtails, I knew the book was in the best of hands

And when Kayla sent me this little sketch of Rochelle for the first time, with those irresistibly cute helmet bunches, I (and my wife) knew that every idea from here on was going to be a hit.

But that’s far from the only thing Kayla helped decide on. She had questions. So many question. (SHE REALLY ASKS A LOT OF QUESTIONS).
- What does each kid look like?
- How old are they?
- What about their dads?
- What about the dimensions of the book?
- What about the name?
- And many many more.

But it turns out, they were all great questions. And every time I answered one, I could tell we were getting closer and closer to making the right the book. And that I had picked the right partner. Truly, there is no such thing as a bad question, so never be afraid to ask!

Kayla hard at work!

The next few months were a whirlwind of exchanges. My inbox tells me we swapped 99 emails in one particular thread as Kayla began sending me concepts, sketches, color tests, and eventually full-page illustrations. And I responded with feedback, research, examples from other kids books, rapturous applause and plenty of these: 

Drawing stuff. It’s easy right.

Grab a pencil. Some paper. Colour between the lines. We’ve all been doing it since we were old enough to take a bite out of a crayon.

Finding Kayla wasn’t as simple as just picking the first artist who said ‘YES’

But from the earliest age, my daughter made it fairly clear what she thought of my attempted crayola masterpieces.

“Daddy. Your pictures don’t look like they’re meant to.”

To be fair, 4 year olds are usually wrong about just about everything in life. She once told me that if she ever stopped drinking milk she’d end up back in mummy’s tummy. I’m not convinced about that, but on this occasion, however, I decided to heed her advice for a change.

As it says on my website — “I write like a scholar and rhyme like a pop star, but I have the illustrative talent of a newborn baby.”

https://medium.com/media/cb30bc46dbcd19cea7efcca2c4841e8a/href

So I took to the internet in search of a partner. And I knew exactly where to look. Instagram. I’ve worked with illustrators before. On websites, apps, novels, and other projects. So I was already following a wide variety of artists. There had to be someone amongst them who could bring my work to life.

I spent days scrolling through my feed and consulting my brain trust (my wife and her bestie) over which artist to choose. There was so much to love, but also plenty to avoid. My characters needed life. No dead eyes, twisted limbs, or banana feet.

I wanted bold colors. Solid lines. And that special je nais se quois, that could elevate the story beyond just its words. So even after I finally narrowed it down to the artists I thought fitted the bill, I realized that I didn’t just need someone to draw the hell out of my words. I needed someone who understood them. Someone who found similar meaning in them. And someone who was going to challenge me and themselves to push the book as far as they could.

So I wrote up a pitch and sent it to each of them. I got two quick responses.

The first was:

“Looks great, when can we get started?”

The second was:

“Here are my rates.”

The third response took a little longer to arrive. But here’s a little snippet:

I’ve been thinking about your email and if your offer still stands I’d love to be involved in your book. The emphasis on adventurous young girls and their relationships with their dads sounds fantastic, and the mix of professions/outfits would make for an incredibly exciting project as an illustrator.

When I was a kid my dad read me bedtime stories too and it was my favourite time with him (I still remember all the voices he’d do when reading ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’). I think your book has a great message and I would love to know more about it

Clearly, a connection had been made. They’d read the text I’d sent. And it had resonated. If there’s one thing I want to make sure I pass onto my kids, it’s that they should do what they love. And if they find the thing they love, they should put all their passion into it. And I could tell straight away that this artist loved what they did and could pour that passion back into my book.

Her journey from scientist to illustrator was uplifting in itself. And the passion and emotion in her work was infectious. The fact that she could also draw some pretty damn amazing characters was a tidy bonus. It only takes a quick flick through her page to realise just how talent she is, and how much time and effort she puts into learning her craft and getting better and better.

And I don’t want to call myself a talent scout or anything, but when I met Kayla back in 2017, this was how many followers she had:

And now she has this many.

So when Simon Cowell retires, I’m totally available to find the next big thing.

https://medium.com/media/d5e93d58350ed4ec1b2d12d831ee9d97/href

After that. It was all systems go. And time for the fun part. Bringing these characters to life!

What Can We Be? Imagination to Reality. (Part 4)

Drawing stuff. It’s easy right.

Grab a pencil. Some paper. Colour between the lines. We’ve all been doing it since we were old enough to take a bite out of a crayon.

Finding Kayla wasn’t as simple as just picking the first artist who said ‘YES’

But from the earliest age, my daughter made it fairly clear what she thought of my attempted crayola masterpieces.

“Daddy. Your pictures don’t look like they’re meant to.”

To be fair, 4 year olds are usually wrong about just about everything in life. She once told me that if she ever stopped drinking milk she’d end up back in mummy’s tummy. I’m not convinced about that, but on this occasion, however, I decided to heed her advice for a change.

As it says on my website — “I write like a scholar and rhyme like a pop star, but I have the illustrative talent of a newborn baby.”

https://medium.com/media/cb30bc46dbcd19cea7efcca2c4841e8a/href

So I took to the internet in search of a partner. And I knew exactly where to look. Instagram. I’ve worked with illustrators before. On websites, apps, novels, and other projects. So I was already following a wide variety of artists. There had to be someone amongst them who could bring my work to life.

I spent days scrolling through my feed and consulting my brain trust (my wife and her bestie) over which artist to choose. There was so much to love, but also plenty to avoid. My characters needed life. No dead eyes, twisted limbs, or banana feet.

I wanted bold colors. Solid lines. And that special je nais se quois, that could elevate the story beyond just its words. So even after I finally narrowed it down to the artists I thought fitted the bill, I realized that I didn’t just need someone to draw the hell out of my words. I needed someone who understood them. Someone who found similar meaning in them. And someone who was going to challenge me and themselves to push the book as far as they could.

So I wrote up a pitch and sent it to each of them. I got two quick responses.

The first was:

“Looks great, when can we get started?”

The second was:

“Here are my rates.”

The third response took a little longer to arrive. But here’s a little snippet:

I’ve been thinking about your email and if your offer still stands I’d love to be involved in your book. The emphasis on adventurous young girls and their relationships with their dads sounds fantastic, and the mix of professions/outfits would make for an incredibly exciting project as an illustrator.

When I was a kid my dad read me bedtime stories too and it was my favourite time with him (I still remember all the voices he’d do when reading ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’). I think your book has a great message and I would love to know more about it

Clearly, a connection had been made. They’d read the text I’d sent. And it had resonated. If there’s one thing I want to make sure I pass onto my kids, it’s that they should do what they love. And if they find the thing they love, they should put all their passion into it. And I could tell straight away that this artist loved what they did and could pour that passion back into my book.

Her journey from scientist to illustrator was uplifting in itself. And the passion and emotion in her work was infectious. The fact that she could also draw some pretty damn amazing characters was a tidy bonus. It only takes a quick flick through her page to realise just how talent she is, and how much time and effort she puts into learning her craft and getting better and better.

And I don’t want to call myself a talent scout or anything, but when I met Kayla back in 2017, this was how many followers she had:

And now she has this many.

So when Simon Cowell retires, I’m totally available to find the next big thing.

https://medium.com/media/d5e93d58350ed4ec1b2d12d831ee9d97/href

After that. It was all systems go. And time for the fun part. Bringing these characters to life!

‘Where did you find time to write a book?’ asked literally everyone I’ve spoken to over the past few years.

Before there was any artwork, there were rhymes…terrible rhymes

Well, contrary to the opinion of my best mate, it wasn’t by manipulating space/time (Not this time anyway).

No, to write novels, scripts, and rhymes — I did three simple things.

Plan. Write. Adapt.

I planned out what I would write, when it would be written, and where the writing would take place.

Then, I started writing. And I kept writing until there were lots of words on all the pages.

It was all terrible. But I kept adapting it until it was less terrible than it was before.

But that’s not actually what I meant by adapting. To adapt means to find a way to plan and write no matter what circumstances you are in.

I can illustrate this by recounting for you what one of my days looks like and how I squeezed writing in everywhere it was possible.

Here goes:

5AM — Wake up. Just kidding. Go back to sleep because its 5AM and I’m not Dwayne Johnson.

6AM — Actually wake up. Run 5K. Because fitness. Achieve a terrible time because I’m distracted by trying to find words that rhyme with Daddy. Shabby. Baddie. Savvy? Julia Donaldson never said life would be like this.

6.45AM — Shower. Because hygiene. Draw silhouettes of book characters on shower screen. The only place where nobody can see how desperately I need an artist.

7AM — 2-year-old son tries to wake up. Negotiating with him to stay in bed until breakfast is ready. Which will be NEVER. He has breakfast at nursery. Additional time allowance.

7.15AM — Abandon my own breakfast plans because 4-year-old daughter wakes up. Get her ready for school. It’s world book day and she wants to go to nursery dressed as a stormtrooper? I only have myself to blame.

7.45AM — Nursery run. Try my best not to verbally or physically assault any other parents in front of son.

7.46AM — Fail. Apologise to nursery.

8.10AM — Kiss gorgeous wife. Make absolutely sure there is no possible way I can be on time for work.

8.30AM — School run. Do everything in my power not to interact with any other human beings.

The office. Where I spit my best rhymes.

9.00AM — Train station. 9 minutes till the train. Planning time. Here I use google drive to go over my notes for the next scene. It’s all been worked out in advance, so this is just a refresher course.

9.09AM — Train is delayed. F**k southern rail. But at least I have another 11 minutes to straighten out some inconsistencies in this scene.

9.20AM — On the train. Crammed in the seat nearest the toilets that smell like someone is raising a litter of pigs inside. F**k southern rail. Approximately 30 minutes until I have to take the tube. Switch to Google Docs. Time to invent an entirely new character whose name rhymes with a word I’m attached to. ‘BELL’ MEET ‘ROCHELLE’. All while being elbowed by the 6'8" man sitting next to me reading the 7'7" financial times.

10.10AM — Arrive at depot. You didn’t think the train was going to reach its destination on time, did you? Bless your naive little heart. Additional minutes spent googling words that rhyme with son. One? Done. Bum? Nope. DELETE ALL SON REFENCES FROM BOOK. Problem solved before the 10 minute walk to the tube station. Work synced to Google Drive. Continue reviewing scene on the move.

If I’m on the tube, it’s Google Keep time. Red notes mean writing ideas

10.15AM — Bumped into 17 people while walking with head down. It’s London so… we all apologise to each other. Jump on the tube. No mobile data. Also, Tube WIFI is a myth. Switch to Google Keep. Here I keep a list of everything wrong with what was just written and new ideas as they crop up. I tick off the list of things I’ve already fixed and chalk up some new changes.

10AM — Arrive at actual work. Because money.

1PM — Lunchtime. Socializing? Small talk? No chance. Time to review feedback from other parents. “One idea I had is that you could change the part where…” NOPE. Ignore all constructive and destructive criticism. Plow ahead.

3PM — That big important presentation that is critical to my role in the company… can go to hell because I’m desperately trying to make ‘doctor’ and ‘not her’ rhyme. Nope, not happening. Erase the doctor character. Nailed it. And I tackled the Presentation the way I always intended. Freestyle. NAILED IT.

6.30PM — Train home. Make sure I’m first to board at the depot by slipping in between the elderly and pregnant passengers, then avoiding all forms of eye contact, thus ensuring myself some prime seated real estate. (Just kidding, I’m a gentleman. Most days...) Another rhyme comes into existence before, finally, I return home.

7.30PM — Clean those kids up. Recount tails of an extraordinarily greedy caterpillar to put them to sleep. Prepare astoundingly good cuisine for the Mrs. Then gossip about other couples and their kids who aren’t as amazing as ours.

So many red notes to get through

9PM — Catch up on Star Trek and Supernatural. (One of these is the best show on TV) Miss out on crucial story developments while deleting all of the complete and utter garbage I rhymed today. Keep that Bell and Rochelle bit though.

Tomorrow. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

The moral of this story. F**k southern rail. But also, there’s always time.

Someone once told me that time is like a predator. Stalking you. Time is going to hunt you down and make the kill.

But I like to think that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment… because they’ll never come again.

Yes, both those quotes were from Star Trek: Generations. No, it wasn’t a good enough movie to live your life by.

Days, weeks and months of refinement later. I’ve got some intact rhymes that don’t entirely suck. It’s a monumental achievement for a dude that hasn’t written a rhyme since his Classical Civilisations exam in college (true story — I scored 100%).

But judging by that deformed-looking drawing on the shower screen, it’s most certainly going to need someone with a little more artistic talent to bring it to life.

Time to find an illustrator.

I’ve written books before.

PULSE: Moonlighter AKA some sh*t blows up in space

Page-turning action-survival thrillers .

Expansive ensemble-led space operas.

And Greek-myth harnessing urban fantasies .

But this time was different. For a start, I couldn’t just blow things up or kill off main characters midway through the book (my real and actual trademarks.) No, kids are not so into watching their favourite characters bite the dust as we are.

This time the story had to be fun, but purposeful. The message had to be clear, not hidden. And the characters had to be real AND fantastic.

Fortunately, research was hardly a problem. Our tiny bookshelf overflowed with tales of both the sublime and ridiculous. I knew by heart the lengths a Caterpillar would go to for food, how seriously great some seriously Ugly Animals can be, and a Frog eventually taught me what Dogs sit on.

After that, I got to work. I tried out a talking pig who loved the smell of bacon. An alien who was afraid of space. And a fish that couldn’t stand the sea. Each had their moments, but none of them felt right. None of them felt like me. Something was missing. So, like any good scholar, I went back to the books. What did these books have that mine was missing. I turned page after page, searching for the answer in the pictures and the rhymes. And it wasn’t until I was on the verge of giving up that I found the missing link.

There. Hidden on the very first page of the Hungry Caterpillar. The page you end up skipping from the 2nd to 400th time of reading. The dedication.

These books weren’t just written for everyone. They were written for someone and everyone. What I was missing was the books raison d’être. That special connection between me and the ones I love. I was trying to write a story that everyone would love when all I needed to do was write a story that two people would love. My daughter and me.

So I burned that chatty pig and cowardly alien to the ground and started from scratch. From reality.
A girl was bored. And she needed something creative to do. A place every parent has found themselves in the past, and a place we’ll continue to find ourselves in the future. And I didn’t wrack my brain too hard to find the answer, because I’d already found it a hundred times before.

Imagination was the answer.

https://medium.com/media/c6a651220d317470e2cdd1ae39638dc4/href

It’s the answer to most questions. And once I knew that, the adventure began to write itself. My story finally had legs…. Unfortunately what it actually needed was rhymes….

Life is busy. Crazy busy.

Way too busy to finish any of the things I actually want to finish. There just isn’t enough time. At least that’s what used to think. But nearly 5 years ago, something happened that changed the way I thought about time forever.

It was the night before July 18th. My dad was racing us through the streets of Surrey amidst one the wildest thunderstorms we’d ever seen, zig-zagging between knee-deep puddles of rain as my wife was swept left and right in the rear of the car until finally, we arrived at the hospital. A few hours (and one tremendous display of unmedicated labor — by my wife, not me) later — my daughter was born.

The first few weeks were a blur. Tears and laughter (neither of them from the baby) flanked sleepless nights and difficult days. But eventually, as all parents do, we found a rhythm. We learned to understand our daughter. And we learned to understand each other, and what we would need to become, even more.

That’s when time really started to speed up. Watching a baby grow is incomparable. Like watching a video at 10x normal speed, everything they do seems to fly by. And if you aren’t paying enough attention, you risk missing all those memories that you can never get back. Before long, they’re walking, talking and repeating expletives reserved for your enemies.

But here’s the caveat. As family times speeds up, everything else begins to move in super-slow motion.

Before my kids, I could barely scroll through my Instagram feed before the train pulled up at my stop. Now, I can build a website in the time it takes to get to work. And writing a bit of javascript is child’s play compared to keeping your 6-month-old alive at soft-play.
Before my kids, I could barely get through a game of FIFA during the evening before it was all over. Now, I can design a game in the time it takes the latest bundle of DLC to download. And making games is child’s play compared to keeping two toddlers in your line of sight at the supermarket.
Before my kids, I could barely flick through a few pages of a novel over a weekend before Monday crept up on me. Now, I can write a few chapters of my own novel in that time. And writing novels’ is child’s play compared to reading The Gruffalo for the four hundredth time.

For me, time became way more manageable with context. Between every transition from soiled nappies and temper tantrums, to nursery-runs and ballet classes — there was a window. The question became what to fill each window with.

And somewhere, round about Gruffalo retelling 359, I had an idea. But if it was going to work, it would take planning. It would take creativity. It would take inspiration. And it would take time. Luckily, I had a window for each.

To Be Continued…

(This ended up being kind of a quick prologue, but over the next couple of weeks I’ll take you through what it’s been like getting this project from start to finish while balancing everything else life throws at you!)

With my book sliding into view on the horizon, you’re all finally getting a peek at some of the characters that have been so wonderfully illustrated by my partner in artistic crime, Kayla.

It’s no secret that the book spotlights a group of girls, each going on both imaginary and very real adventures with their Dads. But we’ve also gotten a lot of positive early feedback because, as you’ll notice, the girls are a relatively diverse group of friends.

Millie!

There is Millie, our main character, who is unbelievably cute, fair of skin and has dark hair. And hopefully, over the course of the story, she’ll even go from being super bored to super excited!

Rochelle!

Our other protagonist is Rochelle, a black girl with fabulous pigtails. You’ve probably seen her because I’m 100% bias towards characters that resemble my daughter 

Great article!

I’d also love to see a similar breakdown on the side self-publishing just to know how you see the two diverging.

My son loves Dinosaurs.

I mean, I know all kids love dinosaurs (especially boys for some reason. Are men genetically predisposed to love prehistoric animals that may or may not have existed?). But until you witness it as a parent, you never quite realize just how freaking much they love em.

Dino-Overload

My son basically needs to be in the vicinity of a dinosaur or something dinosaur-related for at least 70% of his day. That missing 30% isn’t sleep by the way, that’s when he’s eating. This is the part where non-parents be like:
“LOLZ. You don’t spend 30% of the day eating.”
And parents be like:
“Say whuuut. Your kid only spend 30% of the day eating?”
I reckon the average kid spends at least 35% of their day with food in their mouth, hand, hair, beside them on the floor or in their nappy, all of which counts as eating apart from the last one. Nappies get their own 10% of the day.

Dinokid

Anyway, my son always sleeps with a dinosaur. That's a lie actually. He sleeps with like 3 dinosaurs. A bitesize T-Rex that he keeps tucked under his arm — I assume to protect him from sh*t like monsters, aliens and annoying big sisters.
A giant Triceratops. I reckon to keep an eye on the T-Rex because T-Rex’s are d**ks.
And some kinda weird other looking dinosaur that you shove your hand inside and pretend is alive. That one stays at the end of the bed with any sh*t that is a bit too out there for bedtime.

And don’t forget the dinosaur pajamas he sleeps in, just in case he wakes up during the night dinosaur-less and needs to look down at himself before returning to sleep, reassured by nearby dino-activity.

When the morning arrives, the first thing he does is grab his iPad and open up the Pinkfong Dinosaur app. He used to play the free version of this but eventually decided that just the bog standard dinosaurs weren’t enough and he needed more premium grade dinosaurs in his life.
Now, after paying to unlock all the extra dinosaurs, I’m wondering just WTF I spent my money on. I mean, just look at some of these dinosaurs they’re reaching for at the end of the alphabet:

https://medium.com/media/e941b6264f5c013e5fa6cd93dd4d5aaa/href

In fact, my wife and I made sure to do a little research into this supposed Yangchuanosaurus and the natural history museum came up short. They got no freaking clue what a Yangchuanosaurusis is. Or they don’t give enough of a sh*t to list it on their website at least.

We had to consult a deeper well of knowledge (Google obvs) to find out that this bad boy is, in fact, a Chinese dinosaur. So you know what, I guess that was money well spent in the end. I dunno about my son, but I know a sh*tload more about Chinese dinosaurs than I did yesterday.

“Until people learn WTF your names are, you answer to me.”

Once the iPad battery runs out (which largely involves me turning it off when he’s distracted), we switch to playing with actual toy dinosaurs. These guys are made of plastic and have all kinds of sharp teeth and claws, so they hurt like hell whenever he does that ‘Rargh’ sh*t and drags it across your eyes. And it’s always the eyes. Dinosaurs never attack your leg or your arm. Only your eyes. Remember that in case you ever find yourself in some sort of miniature Jurassic Park-type situation.

We even got people to buy him some more relevant toys for Xmas, like all the Paw Patrol pups and their vehicles. (Except Zuma. He’s sh*t. And nobody needs rescuing underwater). And he loved them. For like a day. Then I can only imagine that he thought something along the lines of, “This is great. But you know what these dogs aren’t — Dinosaurs.”

I feel like this is borderline sociopathic

So gradually, he started replacing the pups with dinosaurs. So now we got a bunch of rescue vehicles being driven by dinosaurs. Which looks ridiculous. And also makes no sense, because cars weren’t invented around the time that dinosaurs walked the earth. (What do you mean Paw Patrol makes no sense to begin with?)

To be fair, I’m not completely ungrateful for the whole dinosaur thing. After all, it makes shopping with him almost embarrassingly simple. No need to go poking around at all that LEGO Ninjago garbage. And we can steer well clear of expensive Star Wars and Marvel attire. No, there’s only one section of H&M that’s worthy of his attention:

He’s quicker at shopping than his sister

Obviously, all this Dinosaur activity might be overstimulating for casual dinosaur fans like you and I. We might like to relax in a hot bath and let our thoughts wander elsewhere. My son, on the other hand, takes the opportunity to maximize dinosaur output by sticking them on the bath, outside the bath and occasionally in his mouth as he mimics actually dinosaur life.

Do Dinosaurs swim?

Anyway, I prefer dinosaurs to move in and out of my life fleetingly. So I’m looking forward to a time when he’s into Pokemon or Power Rangers or basically anything that can be enjoyed in moderation.

Until then, dinosaurs it is. I just wish he didn’t always get to be the T-Rex while I get stuck with Pachycephalosaurus.