Mr. Rexy the Vegetarian Dinosaur Dragon

This guy right here is Mr. Rexy. He might look a might bit scary with all of those giant sharp teeth and spikes, but he is a gentle fellow. He is a vegetarian, and he is half T-Rex, half Hookfang dragon. He has gotten a bad rap, you see, from looking so mean. Really, though, he is like a giant teddy bear.

Mr. Rexy had a problem today, however, because a bunch of Pterodactyls “took the rocks from the lake trying to hit him because they were scared of him. They didn’t know he was nice because they never talked to him to see if he was really scary or if he just looked scary.”

Even though this was a bad move on the Pterodactyls’ part, it worked to Mr. Rexy’s advantage. The wet rocks worked to stop the lava from the volcano was erupting, because sometimes “good things happen from bad things.” The volcano is now just “drooling” lava and can’t hurt Mr. Rexy or anyone else. Sometimes we save the day even the original intention wasn’t the right one.

What we do know is that Mr. Rexy needs friends. And maybe a hug. We all need hugs sometimes, just be careful because this vegetarian half T-Rex half Hookfang doesn’t always watch where his spikes go. Hug at your own risk.

 

The Wonders of Princess Dresses and Candy…

I don’t always have to be Dorian, little toddler. I can be lots of things like a pirate or Supergirl, and last week, on the big day called Halloween when everyone dresses up like characters (even a lot of big people), I got to be a teeny Elsa. Aren’t I beautiful? I have the right hair for it after all, so I can pull it off really well, and people all night said the word “aww” as they saw me running down the street. I know that the word “aww” means adorable, so I was really proud walking around all night.

My sister Addie, even though she is normally bigger, became my little sister Ana, so we were sisters in real life and pretend too.

My sister Lilli was a vampire queen, but she wasn’t so scary, she was just really pretty like a real life queen.

My giant brother Jonah, because he is so, so old now, never could decide what he wanted to be… he just wanted candy. He dressed up in the blue creepy mask from his room and all black, and he was so scary that I had to make sure that it was him under there.

Once we got all fancy, we went over to our friends Jill and Stacie’s house to trick or treat. It was a huge place full of a lot of children all dressed up, so many that the streets were filled and no one could drive anywhere– we all had to walk.

There were kids of all sizes and a lot that were little like me, all getting so much candy that we still have boxes and bags full at home.

The neighborhood was all in lights and scary things all over, and it kept going and going so far that you couldn’t see the end of everything… candy in every house, like a Halloween wonderland. There were giant dragons…

And big kitty cats with glowing eyes…

And there was even a scary bear that was in our party with giant teeth, but I am not afraid of almost anything, so I loved him and his shiny teeth and kept trying to get back to him to see him smile at me again and again.

Jill and Stacie’s house had crawling zombies and creatures in mirrors that said “let me out of here!” over and over and a giant man in a mask that Daddy said was “Hannibal Lecter” whoever that was that talked to you when you got near him. I was supposed to be scared of those things I think, but I am very brave, and I also don’t really understand this “scary” and “not scary” business yet. I just look to make sure that my family is around me and that I am safe, and if I feel very scared, I find my Mommy and say “I got choo” and hold onto her. I didn’t ever get scared at all this time, though, because I was a brave and strong little snow queen.

I can’t wait until next year when we get to dress up and do it all over again. Mama says that I will understand even more about Halloween next year, but I already have the hang of it. I learned how to say trick or treat and how to hold a really heavy basket of candy, so I think I am now a Halloween professional. I’ll just be even bigger and better the next time around. That Hannibal guy better watch out because I will be talking more then, and I might scare him instead of him trying to scare me.

One Ball to Rule Them All.

I have it. I have the powerful glowing light in my warm tub of bubbles and toys. My Daddy gave it to me, and it’s all mine. I feel all powerful, saying “ooooo” at the bright presence in the tub. My Daddy told me that I remind him of the powerful Sauron in the book “The Lord of the Rings,” only he said that I am not a dark force but one of light instead. Mama has told me a bit about those stories, and apparently there is a ring that is so, so powerful that no one can truly hold it without feeling its power, and that a dark lord named Sauron created it to have dominion over the whole world of a place called Middle Earth. Maybe the ball is like that, and I have power over everything in my house when I hold this mighty ball. I am not, though, returning the ball anywhere. It is mine… my precious.

One ball to rule them all, one ball to find them,
One ball to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Adults Can Be Kids, Too: The Magic of Dragoncon

Mama and Daddy and me just took a big, big trip all the way to Atlanta (which Mama called Hotlanta, and I sure agree with her because it was crazy hot there). It is where my Grandpa and Linda live, and although they have come to see me, I had never been to see them. Mama says that it is important to travel as much as you can to see the world, but she says that traveling to see family is also very important.

Grandpa had gotten tickets for Mama and Daddy to go to Dragoncon, which is like a giant, giant party for people of all ages. Mama and Daddy had told me that there were going to be a lot of people there that were dressed up like all types of characters from different things like movies, video games, comics, cartoons… everything. They told me… but I had no idea until I saw it. Those people were everywhere, tall, small like me, old people, kids—people of every age all became all of these other creatures. Everywhere I looked there were more of them, and sometimes there were so many people that we just stopped because we had to wait for people in front of us to go through the little walkways from one place to another. There were so many creatures, and it was amazing that all of those people could magically become characters from the storybooks Mama and Daddy read to me. To me they were real, and Mama and Daddy never corrected the wonder that they saw in my eyes because I know that to them some of them were real, too.

We walked around and looked at all of those creatures. I just squealed the entire time and laughed. Mama says I’m not scared of anything. I know what fear is, but why would I have a reason to be scared of a big person acting more like a kid than an adult? We met many people… Chewbacca, a giant furry person with a belt (Daddy says that he is from Star Wars and that I will watch it one day soon), lots of Disney characters (I liked the Elses, and there were a lot of them, best because I can sing along to her song where she lets it go), elves with big pointy ears, dwarves, wizards, soldiers, warriors, and even superheroes like Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. There were so many people that I didn’t know, but Mama and Daddy told me all of the names of the ones that they knew. They didn’t even know them all, and I thought that they knew everything there was to know in the world by now. Mama told me, though, that you can never know everything, which is really what makes life worth living because you can keep on learning and learning forever.

I had two favorite parts of all of the things that I saw and did. The first was the giant parade. We had to wait for a long time, but then I got to wave and shout at all of those characters. I even got some of their attention and they waved back to me. They had cars with “famous” people (Mama says fame is when you know who someone is even when you have never met them before) and characters. They had warriors that drew bows and had swords, and they had scary nightmare creatures, too—but I knew that they wouldn’t hurt me. My favorite was the “Ghostbusters” with the “I Ain’t ‘Fraid of no Ghost” song and their loud siren and their light-up backpacks. They danced around and sang, and I got to shout-sing along with them. They were so exciting that I fell asleep right after they came and went.

I also really loved the magical machine that lifted us up and down called the “escalator.” The MARTA, which I think must mean Magical Amazing Realm Through Atlanta , has a huge one that takes you up and up and up. You can’t even see the top from the bottom and the bottom from the top, and you get to fly. I stretched my legs and put my arms out, and I could fly way up or way down just like the birds that I see.

Magic exists, I know it, and magic was at Dragoncon. It wasn’t all of the characters and the crowds—it was the fact that everyone there, even those who had been on the Earth for a long, long time, remembered being little and went back to that wonderful place of innocence. Everyone put away their big person self in a locked up box for a while. They played, they danced… and for a moment, I could see that all of them forgot their silly-big-people worries that never matter really. It was there in their smiles and their faces, and even Mama and Daddy were little just like me.