Stretching My Mind

I have very clear memories of reading about dinosaurs with my daughters. I even had a set of cookie cutters and I think we made cookies once. More often the girls traced them to fill in their prehistoric landscapes.

I also very clearly remember that there were five of them. Dinosaurs, not girls. They only seemed like five when they were running in circles.  

 Those five are: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, and last, but not least, Brontosaurus, which is now called Allosaurus. I'm a little fuzzy on this. Apparently someone decided a mistake had been made assembling the first set of bones and when it was redone correctly it needed a new name. Or something like that. Don't ask me, I'm not a paleontologist.

I'm sure there were more dinosaurs, but if you knew those five you were on solid ground.

Then grandson #1 went through a phase (a long, intense phase) of dinosaur fascination. And now there are hundreds of them. I'm not exaggerating. There was a dinosaur explosion while I wasn't paying attention.

I worked very  hard at learning one or two new dinos each time I saw him. Spinosaurus--lives in water, eats fish. Giganotosaurus, even bigger than T Rex. Carcaradontosaurus, the biggest one of all. The tricky part was remembering them at each visit. There were quizzes.

Now I'm facing the same thing with grandson #2 and Sesame Street. In the "old" days, the stars were Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Grover, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. Snuffy and the Count were often around, and eventually a little girl Muppet named Prairie Dawn was introduced when someone noticed that there were no females.

Elmo came later, but everyone knows him from the Tickle Me Elmo fad. Now there's also Zoe (light orange), Rosita (sea green), Abby (pink), her brother Rudy (orange), and Murray (red) who raps about his little lamb. I need the color as a clue since there's quite a crowd of them now. I'm pretty well caught up with all the regulars, although there are  a several who show up occasionally. I'm not concerned about them. When #2 is old enough, he can tutor me.    

It's the actual people who are confusing me. I've been told that Susan, Gordon and Maria show up now and then. But there's a whole slew of new people. Alan and Chris run the store (­­Mr. Hooper's store!) and Leela runs the laundromat and they're the only ones I'm sure of. In fact, since I'm so totally out of touch with current culture, I never even know if I'm seeing a regular or a guest star. I recognized all the guest stars back in the day. 

I'm trying. Trying hard. I don't want my grandkids to think I'm lame.

But it's mind-boggling!