My sides hurt from laughing.

This book has been in our home for a couple of weeks now, due to the incessant demands of my 2 year old. On only our second trip to our new library, he demanded that we get a dinosaur book. Since they are kept on a shelf too high for him to reach, even on a stool, I had to one by one take them down for him to conduct an inspection.

“No. No. No. Not dat one, a T-Rex one. No! A T-Rex one, Mommy! A T-Rex one! No, not dat T-Rex. No. No. No . . . ”

Finally, a resounding, “Yes! Dat one! Dat one T-Rex book!”

I didn’t bother to push the issue that it’s actually not a T-Rex on the cover. I just smiled and handed it over.

This was followed by twenty minutes of hugging the book while dancing around singing “Mine T-Rex book. I got mine T-rex book. Mommy! Mine T-rex book. Read it? Read it?”

“We’ll read it when we get home. Right now Mommy’s looking for books.”

Recommence dancing and singing at full volume. Thank goodness the librarian thought he was cute!

Needless to say, we were excited to get this home and read it for bedtime stories. Boy was my little guy shocked when we opened the cover and flipped to the first page, which has a picture of a collection of fossilized poop.

Gasp! Horror!

“Where’s mine T-Rex?!?!?”

Oops! That’s the trouble with picking books by the cover and not doing an inside check. Never fear! Here comes Mom with a silly explanation of dinosaur poop and the 2 year old (who is on the cusp of potty training) is immediately engrossed, or should I say grossed out and completely obsessed by the idea of Dino Poop.

“Poop Mommy? Dat poop? No way.” (giggle, giggle)

And thus began our month long obsession with the ‘poop book’. The older kids and I have actually read the information, and my two year old has listened fairly intently. But mostly he just cares about the pictures. This book contains fascinating pictures and illustrations of the inner working of dinosaurs and of fossilized feces called coprolites. Many pictures of different colors, shapes and sizes of coprolites. Even pictures of poop being cut open and ‘cooked’. At least that’s what my two year old thinks they do to it when putting it under a microscope. (I know, I know, I’ve tried explaining it, but who knew you didn’t have to wait for your kids to be teenagers before they realize you don’t know everything?) So, when we get to that page, and one somewhat similar, he announces (loud enough for Grandma to hear upstairs):

“Now, cut da poop and cook da poop!” (repeat 3 times, each time increasing in volume for authentic replication)

Now do you see why my sides hurt? Nap time begins with “Read mine poop book! Where’s da poop book? I want a read mine poop book!”

I had to break the very sad news to my toddler that we have to take the book back. We can’t keep it forever.

“Oh. Mine poop book? Take it back? Why?”

He was so crestfallen. I think this might be a good one to add to the family library. We are just about rounded out on dinosaurs after boys #1 and #2. But, I think this should complete the collection, don’t you? I mean, what else could there be to learn about dinosaurs? I think our personal library covers them from head to toe and um, maybe it should also cover the ‘crap’ they left behind. I think crap could be short for coprolites maybe that’s where the word originated. I can just see some poor person stumbling over coprolite. “Copro- what? Did you say Crapolite? Croprolite? Oh, Crap!” And a new word is born. That’s how I imagine it anyhow.

This book could really work under two categories, dinosaurs and potty training. It’s like a two for one deal. We could all use that in this day and age- we all want to get the biggest bang for our buck! And just in case you were wondering, no this book wasn’t written for toddlers, just loved to pieces by mine. There are many very interesting facts and the writing is superb. The pictures are fascinating and it is a step 5 reader book. I only wish we’d known about this book back when child #2 was full of poopy escapades . . .

Do your kids have a favorite book that took you by surprise?