Sadly, Pokemon Master is not in my Future

An unsupervised trip to Home Depot can result in a detour to several fireworks tents. He's a bargain hunter like me, so the bag o 'works in this picture was quite a deal. Who knew they deeply discounted last year's duds and this year's dented boxes!!??!!

As a mother of an only child, I wear a lot of hats: mom, friend, sibling. The last one is the hardest. You see when you only have one, it's up to you to fill in the gaps.

I have a techy kid. You know, Bill Gates in a smaller package. Which can mean many things. He may invent some computer chip required multiple times by every household in the world some day, so I'll live in a really great nursing home. Or, he'll always live in my basement. Gasp, did I really say that out loud? Young One, this is one more thing that you're just going to have to forgive me for. And hopefully, by the time you read this, you'll be old enough to understand (or at least be rolling on that big pile of green that your computer chip invention has led you to.)

(OK, now honey, money ain't everything and I hope that along with the smarts, cute glasses, and that dimple that gets me every time, that you've at least learned that from me. Go for happy kid and the rest will follow!)

I'm wandering here...

Anyway, video games, strategy games, technical discussions on the merits of one gadget over another, well, they permeate our discussions. And I hate to admit that I don't follow very many of them that well. In fact, I've decided from now on that every time D or Young One starts mentioning this techy jargon that I'm going to launch into a speech about the renal system or how to make a roux.

I just don't get much of it.

And I think I'm a better person for it!

I curse the creators of much of this garbage gaming, craziness card collecting and trading, and more pieces of plastic crap that I can step on barefoot on midnight trips to the bathroom collectible action figures. I've had to try to learn the fine points of Warcraft, Halo, and hear endless conversations about the evolution of Nintendo.

And I love it all. Yes, sometimes I pull from the depths of my soul levels of patience that I had no idea existed. Yes, sometimes, I may say the wrong thing (like the time I misprounounced a character's name IN FRONT OF the gang of friends). I love the fact that my son is normal, healthy, smart, and quirky. I love that he wants to talk to me about all this stuff (despite my learning disability). I love that he's found something that he loves.

And that's really what it's all about.

So, I'm off to take a crash course by Googling Warcraft (his current obsession). I've been informed that Pokemon is for kids (um, and you aren't?) and so the title of this post isn't even valid. Oh well, I've finally become my mother. I'm almost, but not quite, obsolete.