Where Did the People Live?

Ever since I showed the boys the movie The Land Before Time, M and B have been obsessed with all things dinosaur. M has t-shirts with T-Rex's on them, both boys have pajamas covered in all types of dinosaurs and I have checked out every kid book in the library on the topic. They cannot get enough.

When questioned by M about where people lived when dinosaurs were around, I explained that people weren't in existence yet. Unfortunately, one of the books we read has a picture of a person next to one of the dinosaurs to detail the approximate height of brontosauruses. Things got squirrely from here. M asked me again where people lived when dinosaurs were around and I explained, once again, that people were not around back then. He then pointed to the picture in the book and said, "There's a person right there, Mommy. People were alive with the dinosaurs." (It sucks when your kids stop believing everything you tell them.)

I calmly explained AGAIN, that people and dinosaurs did not coexist and that the picture was just to show how large dinosaurs were in comparison to people. It was like I hadn't spoken. M asked me, "Did people live in trees to stay away from the mean dinosaurs?" Out of exasperation, I agreed with him.

This "lie" proved to be a bad idea, as M has continued to ask me time and again about people and dinosaurs coexisting and since I already agreed that people lived in trees millions of years ago, I'm stuck. Not to mention that I could pull my hair out over this same conversation over and over and over again. I guess the good thing is that his belief that people lived in trees to escape dinosaurs lends itself to future conversations in regards to monkeys and evolution.