Big Boy Toys

Saturday, we celebrated Luke's 5th birthday with a trip to Pump it Up with all the kids from his preschool class. Unfortunately about of third of them came down with that awful Stomach Virus that has been infiltrating everyone's homes. But they all had a great time, and I was able to "sell" back all the juice and goodie bags that weren't used. Bonus.

One of Luke's best friends is into Star Wars—really into Star Wars. And since his mother is also my best friend, she rescued me last week by keeping Luke for the afternoon while Gavin and I were pooping and barfing our brains out. They spent the afternoon playing Lego Star Wars on XBox—and they had the best time ever. I have not introduced video games to the kids yet, and plan to put that off for as long as possible. We have a Wii, but we have never let the kids play it. I'm trying to keep them innocent for as long a possible—and keep toys and experiences age appropriate. It's not easy. And I would think its even harder for the parents of girls. Some of the clothes I see in stores for "little" girls. Really horrifying.

Anyway back to Star Wars. And with a name like Luke, why wouldn't Star Wars be a favorite brand of toys. It certainly was in my house growing up. And now that Luke has shown interest, all those memories and excitement of playing and watching Star Wars are coming back to me—and I'm starting to feel like a kid again. It's kind of nice to be able to share that with them. Especially since I won't be sharing my love of Barbie or My Little Pony with them. So I broke down and let him pick out a Light Saber for his birthday. Something I said I would never do. I did however put my foot down when he requested the Darth Maul Double light saber. All I could see was a broken TV and lights everywhere. He adores it. He slept with it the first night he had it, and brought it to school the next day to show everyone.


Now he is also requesting to watch Star Wars. The only Star Wars cartoon is the Clone Wars, which I think is kind of dark for a 5-year-old. But Episode I is fairly benign so I let them watch it. They didn't sit through the whole thing and seemed to loose interest towards the end, and have not asked to watch it again. However, Luke's light saber came with a mini DVD with light saber battles and they are addicted to that.

So it is the beginning of the end of Preschool TV and toys swapped for Big Boy shows and Big Boy toys. And Gavin is following right along.