Very Small and Very Tired

“We don’t just have a skeleton,” said one of the nodosaur researchers involved. “We have a dinosaur as it would have been.”

Known as a nodosaur, this 110 million-year-old, armored plant-eater is the best preserved fossil of its kind ever found.

8yo: “Will you trade me for my Pussyduck?”

6yo: “No thank you, I’ve already got a Pussyduck.”

Me: “Guys? Um. Somebody want to spell that one out for me?”

8yo: “P-S-Y-D-U-C-K. Pussyduck.”

My Therapist: Then do it.

Me: I’m sorry?

My Therapist: Primal screeching is one way of completing your stress cycle, do it. Be mindful of where you are, I usually do it in my car, but yeah. Go for it.

Me: Ah- Oh.

My dad has always had me do this, especially when I was little and kept the baby up. We would go into the back yard, point to the river (to keep the ship captains up at night) and scream. I was also told to jump up and down to “get all the scream out” 

I did this in college too. There’s nothing more cathartic than climbing the fence of the fishing pier, running to the end of it and screaming into the wind. It’s powerful, it’s therapeutic, it’s feral and wonderful. 

I did this with kids too, when they have too much energy. When I worked at a children’s camp and the kids had too much energy when the rain canceled pool time I took them out in the rain, made them jump up and down and scream, and then 15 some nine-year-olds and I would rance across the field screaming in the rain