Yes, It's Movember--But Don't Forget About Dinovember!

Yes, yes, mustaches. I get it. You’re growing a mustache. It’s for charity. Charity is good, men’s health is good. And it’s November. Movember. Yes. What you did there, I see it.

But in your spare non-mustache-growing hours, why not think outside the box a little bit? Refe Tuma, writing at Medium, explains how he and his wife use their November to bring a little bit of wonder and mystery into their children’s lives:

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.

…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 some time and
energy, creativity, and a few plastic dinosaurs.

I don’t generally subscribe to the “technological progress is destroying childlike wonder” school of hysteria-mongering (iPads are pretty fucking wondrous compared to what I grew up with), but I take Tuma’s point, overly precious or no. There is something magical about childhood—discovering the world piece by piece, peering around corners, fleshing out the map—and whether or not you believe that process is undone by the mere existence of Netflix, fostering it in your children is certainly worthwhile.

And Tuma fosters the crap out of it. You must go look at his Dinovember photo essay (LOOK AT IT), in which the prehistoric rascals get ever more rascally and their path of destruction grows more and more elaborate. At the beginning, it’s just cereal. Some errant flakes. Torn cardboard. By the end, the dinos have constructed a medieval castle and defend it in hand-forged tinfoil armor.

At first, you think, do the kids really fall for this? Kids aren’t idiots. Kids know Toy Story is only a movie. But as you scroll through the photos and it becomes apparent just how much time and effort Tuma and his wife must have put into each day’s tableau, you start to think the kids might be on to something. Taking Occam’s razor into account, why the fuck would you presume that your otherwise normal parents stayed up all night folding Reynolds Wrap into tiny hauberks for plastic allosauruses!?!?!? NOPE. THOSE LITTLE DUDES ARE DEFINITELY COMING TO LIFE. It is the only logical explanation.

Yes, It's Movember–But Don't Forget About Dinovember!