When we’re young, everything seems so much simpler. If you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up they’ll look you straight in the eye and tell you they want to be a member of the Paw Patrol. At that age everything’s straightforward and dreams are as real as a box of micro chips.

I miss that. I miss feeling like I had my whole life ahead of me, that when I was older I could be anything I wanted to be. When I was a kid, all those years ago when popper pants roamed the earth and people weren’t eaten alive for wearing flatforms, I was OBSESSED with Jurassic Park. I would watch it repeatedly, in awe of what I called “the old bones, science stuff”. I would rewind the part where they typed jargon into those computers from the 80s that you played games on in primary school. I would stare, mouth agape, when the scientists fertilised dino eggs in labs and Alan would dig up bones in the hope of discovering a new species.

I was so obsessed by all this dino-technical-science that when I when Igrew up I was desperate to be a T-Rex. There was the whole issue with the T-Rex not being able to see a moving object, but as a child I didn’t think that that would stop me from doing an awesome job as a T-Rex.

“What if you fall over?” my little bro had asked me once when I went parading around the house with my arms tucked into my T-shirt.

“I dunno… I suppose I can grab something with my mouth or the other tyrel-o-saws would pull me up.”

For another kid so young, he seemed determined to ruin my dream. “You know why King Kong beat the dinosaurs?” he asked.

“Why?” He wriggled his fingers at me then gave me a big thumbs up: “Opposable thumbs.”

I couldn’t argue with the logic (largely because I had no clue what he was on about), but I do know that all my dreams vanished with a single gesture.

Fast forward many years and I’m left wondering what might have been. stuck in a boring job making mediocre money when I could have been prancing about eating livestock as farmers attacked me with pitch forks. All those afternoons practising standing up without using my arms were for nothing.I was feeling so down about it lately that I sat a toy tyrannosaurus on the fireplace and used it as a starting point to encourage my own kids to follow in the family footsteps, but they weren’t interested. Until now…

We attended a barbecue last week and, after a few pinots, the adults were persuaded to play a strange game that involved completing tasks with their hands tied behind their backs. It seemed like a laugh (plus a bottle of Frosty Jack’s was at stake). One such involved eating a burger then sprinting through the garden to head butt a swing ball. It was like I was a kid again! My children watched as I stomped as only a Cretaceous critter could. I crushed the competition! My dreams were alive again and my kids had a newfound respect for dino mam after laughing at me all those years.

Now I’m thinking of going TR full time. I only wished I’d followed those big, childhood dreams all those years ago! One downside – doors aren’t as easy to navigate anymore. I hope us dinosaurs evolve and get some opposable thumbs soon.