All Good Intentions

Like most parents, I am filled with good intentions to regularly provide fun activities that prove to be both stimulating and educational. These marvellous activities will result in industrious and happy small people. Yeah, right... I keep dreaming!

My eldest child, Isla, went through a dinosaur phase. The fun activity dreamed up by one over-zealous Mummy? Paper-mache dinosaur eggs!

Had I known what would happen, I'd have told myself not to be such an idiot. Instead, I embarked enthusiastically on a rosy-eyed vision of a journey of childish industriousness.

How To Make Paper-Mache

My problems began almost immediately. I don't know how to make paper mache. I'm sure at one moment, possibly many moments in my childhood, I had 'paper-mached' various projects. But, try as I might, I couldn't remember the ingredients.

I remain undaunted. Not a problem, merely a minor hiccup. I can google!

The ingredients for paper mache: 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour. The method: Mix together and use.

Well, that sounds easy enough.

I am not a regular baker, however. I check my almost non-existent baking stock and discover some elderly gluten-free flour. The reason for its presence within my kitchen had been lost with time, but at least I have flour.

The thought flashes through my brain - will gluten-free flour work? Is gluten important? I google! Unfortunately, I failed to discover a straightforward yes or no answer on the matter. Still, I was left with the distinct impression it wouldn't. Gluten, it seems, is sticky; it is what makes flour stick. Without gluten, there is no stickiness; without stickiness, there will be disintegrating dinosaur eggs. Best to make an effort and buy some gluten-free flour.

I go to the shops and buy regular flour and a couple of Malta's daily papers.

With the practical side of the activity sorted, I turned to the academic side.

The Academics Of Dinosaur Eggs

My four-year-old daughter would be writing her ground-breaking PhD dissertation immediately afterwards, so it was essential to ensure all prehistoric facts were correct. I began googling.

I choose three dinosaurs: Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Stegosaurus. Before this exercise, I considered these three among the most well-known dinosaurs, and, as my daughter already had a toy representing each one, I felt assured these were good choices.

Let's get that pin ready to burst my little bubble!

Brontosaurus

Brontosaurus doesn't exist. I couldn't believe it either! Brontosaurus doesn't exist! I had to repeat it just to believe it!

Suppose you, like me, grew up believing Brontosaurus was the largest dinosaur ever; then you can understand my confusion. But you read me right, Brontosaurus does not exist! It's really quite upsetting. I can only liken the feeling to when Pluto was declared not a planet! How dare they remove Pluto from the list of planets? How dare they remove Brontosaurus from the list of dinosaurs!

Incensed with the injustice of the world, I google to uncover the facts and uncover the whole sordid story.

The Sordid Story Of The Demise Of Brontosaurus

Someone found part of a skeleton. Quickly as a flash, this discoverer registered it as a new dinosaur find. Proudly, they endow it with the name Apatosaurus. Fast forward a few years, and another person makes their own incredible find. A really, really big dinosaur skeleton! They, too, run off to register the new discovery. They name it Brontosaurus. Two different dinosaurs registered, these discoverers relax; their places in the history of the world as finders and namers of gigantic dinosaurs are assured. They sit back and relax. And, for many a year, there have been two separate and distinct dinosaurs. One is called Apatosaurus, and the other is Brontosaurus.

Now, for whatever reason, Apatosaurus fades into the background. Brontosaurus, on the other hand, becomes a film star! We all learn about it in school. It's the biggest land animal to have ever been! It gets its own replicas! Lots of them! Brontosaurus made it! Brontosaurus is famous! Everybody loves Brontosaurus.

Let's move along a few more years. Palaeontologists, who, you must remember, also know the name of the otherwise forgotten Apatosaurus, keep eyeing Brontosaurus suspiciously. 'Ah-ha!' they conclude. 'This is the same dinosaur!' It's the death knell of the Brontosaurus we are so fond of. Enter the funeral march of Brontosaurus here… dum dum dee dum, dum dee dum dee dum dee dum…

Faced with two names, Brontosaurus, known by almost the entire world and the other, and Apatosaurus, which hardly anyone has heard of, the only sensible solution would be to drop the unknown name and keep the known one. Thus, schools and educational institutions worldwide would be saved millions on books. And those who, having already been robbed of the smallest of the planets in our solar system (oh, Pluto, where art thou!), would not be further traumatised by the disappearance of the much-beloved dinosaur they had grown up with.

This perfectly logical solution would have been too easy! Unfortunately, this is not so! To resolve such conflicts and prevent archaeological fisticuffs, the first name stands, and the second is resigned to the bin. So, unbeknownst to me and many others, Apatosaurus had won, and Brontosaurus had lost. However, the scientific institutions must have learnt from the highly publicised demotion of Pluto, which sparked protests, outright denials and social media groups worldwide. They kept it all out of the spotlight and silently gave the mightiest of my childhood dinosaurs to the nether realm of unexistence.

After the traumatic loss of Brontosaurus, I pull myself together. Parenthood must go on!

Apatosaurus Dimensions

A short google later, I know everything there is to know about Apatosaurus' egg size, most likely dietary requirements and the adult size. 22 meters for those who are intrigued. The eggs and diet are straightforward, but the size... not so much. Are the 22 meters from nose to tail on a diagonal or along the ground while the dinosaur is standing? Never mind, I think, how much of a difference can it really make? What are a few metres here and there?

Isla's dissertation devolves from a PhD to a Masters.

Now for T-Rex…

T-Rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex, possibly, the most famous dinosaur of all time and star of countless movies, is, apparently, one of the rarest dinosaurs to find. There are no complete skeletons found as yet, and the best the experts have is 90% of it.

Also, there have been no T-Rex eggs found, ever! Experts don't even want to guesstimate an egg size… The best I could do after much fruitless googling, which started to make me googly-eyed, was one expert saying between the size of a penguin egg and an ostrich. Probably closer to the penguin egg.

I've only made an omelette with chicken eggs. I have no idea what size a penguin egg or ostrich egg is? Undeterred! I google! And realise I have completely underestimated the variety of penguins out there. There are 17 different species of penguins of varying sizes with, obviously, a variety of different-sized eggs. My expert obviously cheated me in his T-Rex egg guesstimate. I googled ostrich eggs instead and shaved a bit off the length. My daughter will never know… The dissertation is now at a Bachelor's level.

Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus, thankfully, was easy as! The palaeontologists had taken pity on me.

Let's Make Dinosaur Eggs

How To Blow And Measure?

How do you simultaneously blow up a balloon and measure it with a tape measure? You can't. Instead, you must enlist(erm… force) a nearby husband into your madcap scheme. My husband held and puffed while I watched and measured. Make what you will of that particular sentence.

Suffering A Puncture

Ready and waiting for 'paper-macheing', the T-Rex egg balloon had suffered a puncture. The King of the dinosaurs was a frazzled bit of rubber measuring less than a centimetre beside the proudly puffed Apatosaurus and Stegosaurus. We hastily found another balloon: hubby puffed, and I measured.

No!

Everything was ready! I explained the fun activity, and my daughter ran away to hide in her tent. Apparently, the paper mache would make her messy, and she was wearing a pretty dress! No amount of cajoling would bring her out of the tent. A pretty dress, especially one which was pink and swished from side to side when she wiggled, trumped 'fun activity' in her opinion.

My husband 'paper-mached' Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus, and I 'paper-mached' T-Rex. My husband and I found the exercise quite relaxing and therapeutic.

Decorating The Eggs

It took a day for the paper mache eggs to dry out and the pretty dress to be placed in the wash, and then the eggs were painted in their own unique colours. Apatosaurus got blue, T-Rex got brown, and Stegosaurus was declared green. Apparently, Apatosaurus eggs also have stickers on them. Since the experts can't even guess the egg size, who are they to tell us no?

When the paper mache dried, we popped the inner balloons with gusto. Destruction of any object (as long as it isn't a pretty dress) is always met with immediate enthusiasm. Should I be worried?

Each egg also hatched. My husband spontaneously initiated this unplanned event with a pair of scissors, which delighted our daughter. She then coaxed them out of their eggs and painted each one a plate of food. T-Rex got meat (red and brown paint swirls), Apatosaurus got tree branches (green paint swirls), and Stegosaurus got plants and flowers (green paint swirls with pink blobs).

Measuring Dinosaurs

My next plan was to go out somewhere more spacious than our apartment. A 22-metre Apatosaurus was never going to fit…

Unfortunately, fate chose otherwise. That morning my son awoke with a mosquito bite on his forehead. We dropped him off at the nursery, only for him to be sent home within the hour. The mosquito bite was the beginning of chickenpox - a local doctor confirmed the diagnosis. We weren't going anywhere for two weeks.

Instead, we decided to measure the slightly smaller T-Rex and Stegosaurus in the longest part of our home, the corridor. My husband held one end of the tape measure, and my daughter and I took the other.

We began with Stegosaurus. Unfortunately, whoever made our tape measure had not considered the need to measure dinosaurs - the tape measure wasn't long enough. With a bit of ingenuity, we tag-teamed the length. Turns out Stegosaurus was about 12 daughters long while T-Rex was between two and three husbands tall.

We never did measure out Apatosaurus. Instead, we watched Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur' - an endearing kids' film starring a family of Apatosaurus'. This while eating ice cream and chocolate instead - it turns out my daughter doesn't care about her pretty dress when there's chocolate and ice cream!