Video of P.E.I. dad painting over his growing son's dinosaur mural goes viral

The Jurassic period is definitely over for a 10-year-old boy on Prince Edward Island, and a video representation of that passage of time has amassed millions of views on social media.

A coat of blue paint now covers a colourful dinosaur mural that once filled a whole wall in Finn Cameron's bedroom. 

"It's bittersweet," said his father, Jordan Cameron. 

He painted the mural six years ago as a surprise for his four-year-old son, who "was very into dinosaurs at the time." 

Now Finn is older, less interested in dinosaurs, and sharing the room with a younger brother. 

When they decided to paint over it, Cameron's wife set up a camera and filmed the process. He didn't think the video would end up getting millions of views in just a few days. 

"I was kind of laughing, 'I don't really know why you're taping this.'"

He understood when he saw it. His wife had edited the new video onto the end of the one shot six years ago, when Finn saw the prehistoric landscape for the first time. 

Mainstreet PEI8:16P.E.I. family goes viral for painting over a mural

We speak with Jordan Cameron about a video that's getting millions of views. On the weekend, he painted over a six-year-old dinosaur mural on his son's wall. Cameron tells us why he painted over the mural.

He walks into the room, his eyes widen, and his mouth drops as he stares at the creatures towering over him. 

"Wow, Mommy, come see this!" you can hear Finn saying in the old video, taking a step back to get a better view before going over to his dad and hugging him. 

Just above the baseboard, running the length of the wall, brown paint represents earth encasing a white fossil. Moving up, the scene gives way to lush green foliage, palm trees, and a few blue dinosaur eggs in one corner. 

An orange dinosaur with purple spikes and a toothy smile stands on two feet. Another dinosaur, more of a pinkish colour, pokes its long neck into the frame on the right, stretching to bite off a palm tree frond. 

Blue sky surrounds them and a volcano erupts in the distance, orangish-red lava pouring from its mouth and grey smoke billowing out. 

The video cuts to Cameron creating the mural, followed by shots of the finished product. 

When you have kids, you live 100 little lives every few months.— Jordan Cameron

Then it cuts again, to the present day. An older Jordan Cameron stands in the same room with a paint roller in hand — covering up his creation with every pass.

We see a smoothly painted de-dinosaured wall, and an older and taller version of Finn. 

It ends with a final cut to the old video, and Finn's younger self staring up at the dinos. 

"It's the end of the little era," Cameron said of the episode. 

"When you have kids, you live 100 little lives every few months, things change so much. And so this was just kind of turning the little page on another little life." 

Since posting the video, Cameron says the notifications have been constant.

"Every time I open my phone, it almost crashes because there's too many updates," he said. As of Friday at 6 p.m. AT, it had been viewed about 18 million times. 

He thinks the video took off because it shows something most parents can relate to: "When you realize you don't have little babies anymore. The visual representation of just the paint going over the mural… kind of closing the book on another chapter." 

As for the boys, their next chapter includes bunk beds, and possibly a new Nintendo-themed mural, painted by their dad.