I'm In

Throughout their relatively short lives, the boys have each had their obsessions.  First it was everything Cars, then it was Transformers, now it's Legos and collecting Pokemon and sports cards.  Some of these were easy to understand from a parental perspective.  I understand the coolness of cars that drive fast and race around with a buddy for a tow truck.  I love puzzles so my crash coarse on transforming Autobots and Decepticons was kind of fun.  Current Legos are way cooler than they were when I was little so I get it.  I loved Legos when they were just bricks and there where no instruction booklets.  Now they can build pieces from the ancient mystical land of Chima.  47 pages of diagrams and three hours later, a masterpiece is formed.  Master builder status is earned and proven.  I get it.

Both Luke and Jack starting collecting sports cards a while ago.  Tim has collected cards since he was as old as they are now.  He has some really cool cards to show for it, like a Ken Griffey Jr. signed rookie card.  I grew up watching the Mariners, so I understand the nostalgia.  Luke pulled a rookie Russell Wilson the other day.  It was pretty cool.  He has been checking out NFL history books from the library.  Now we have conversations that involve Hail Mary's, NFC vs. AFC and random football stats from 1979.

Collecting cards, especially Pokemon cards, has been a little harder for me to understand.  Jack has pulled some cards that have labels of rare, mega, reverse foil, 100 damage, legendary, and EX.  I'm learning all about Charizard, Yveltal, Xerneas and Krookodile.  There is something involving evolution and I hear the term X and Y thrown around.  I haven't quite figured it all out, but a scientific thread is in there somewhere.  I guess there is a game involved but the boys haven't discovered that part yet.  In the mean time, they've made up their own that involves throwing something at a certain card and points given or taken away.  I'm pretty sure that is no where near the official rules, but it works for them.

I knew this whole parenting thing was going to be a continuing education, but I figured it would involve things like fine motor skill development, elementary academic rubrics and social skills.  Little did I know, it would also involve Pikachu, Flareon and Blastoise.  However long this obsession continues, whenever the next one starts, if it involves either of these three:

I'm in.