Parents bring children’s toys to life for “Dinovember”
posted Monday, November 18, 2013 at 1:57 PM EDT
What would you do if, every morning for the month of November, you woke up and found your toys had taken on a life of their own while you slept? That's what writer Refe Tuma and his wife have done for their kids in an event they've dubbed Dinovember, and they're chronicling it all over Facebook.
Writing for the Huffington Post, Hefe explains:
Every year, my wife and I devote the month of November to convincing our children their plastic dinosaur figures come to life while they sleep.
It began modestly enough. The kids woke up to discover that the dinosaurs had gotten into a box of cereal and made a mess on the kitchen table.
The next morning, the dinos had climbed onto the kitchen counter to raid the fruit bowl.
The morning after that, they had managed to breach the refrigerator and help themselves to a carton of eggs. "Uh-oh," we heard our girls whisper. "Mom and Dad are not going to like this."
And so, each night the dinosaurs get into mischief, and each morning the kids stumble on the aftermath, which gets recorded and put on Facebook. The toys get into all sorts of trouble, too. Making messes out of food, drawing on things, destroying objects, and just generally being a rampaging horde of terrible lizards.
For most of us watching them from the outside, it's just a cute annual project that a set of parents are doing with their children. But can you imagine how amazing it must be to a small child, to wake up every morning and see these tableaux?
As Hefe put it:
Why do we do this? Because in the age of iPads and Netflix, we don't want our kids to lose their sense of wonder and imagination. In a time when the answers to all the world's questions are a web-search away, we want our kids to experience a little mystery. All it takes is some time and energy, creativity, and a few plastic dinosaurs.
Childhood is fleeting, so let's make sure it's fun while it lasts.