Sickachu!

I keep hoping it will pass but so far it seems to continue unabated. Will she remember her presidents or multiplication tables nearly as well all those freaking Pokemon?? I doubt it. Allegedly, it’s normal for the age. There are seemingly endless complicated discussions between my daughter and her friends about which pokemon can beat which and how they change. They may as well be speaking swahili. When she tries to pull me into these discussions, I just make sure to interject vague remarks like “Oh really?” and “No kidding!” so she thinks I get it. Our girl just keeps going on enthusiastically, despite the fact that I have no clue what she’s talking about.

It started when she was little. There were books she’d fall in love with and we’d all read them over and over until we’d had them all memorized. After a while we’d change what the words said just to keep ourselves from getting too bored and see if she was listening. Other phases hadn’t lasted this long, or at least it didn’t feel that way. It started with Elmo, then went to Mickey Mouse, then Shrek and then Cars. Once video games entered the picture, things really went downhill.

My brother in law gave us their old Wii game system. An addict was born. I am grateful I grew up in the stone age. We were forced to – dare I say it – interact. Now I’m finding the technology is inescapable. I’m finding it’s a real struggle to make it a priority to get all of us away from our computers and video games. It would be nice to find something we could do together as a family. The problem is how do you find something that doesn’t involve spending pantloads and can engage someone with the attention span of a squirrel? Fortunately, since it’s fall I don’t have much trouble dragging everyone out to a pumpkin patch for a few hours but that’s only one weekend while the weather is still cooperative.

The competition is stiff. Even the grown ups are not immune. We’ve all seen the stories on the news recently about people getting hurt playing Pokemon Go, or as I call it Pokemon Go away. This latest obsession also seems to be ubiquitous. Maybe it’s just because I’m aware of it from our daughter but these guys are giving the Disney princesses a run for their money. There are t-shirts, stuffed toys, banks, books, pajamas, Halloween baskets, lunch boxes, frozen pizza and (gasp) dog food. Well okay, I haven’t seen those last two but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Slap a character on anything and it’s instantly better than the exact same thing next to it. I’ve had to explain marketing to my daughter more times than I have hair on my head, which is turning gray when it’s not falling out. These items are also more often than not fine quality products from China and you guessed it, often twice the price of your standard character free item.

What’s even more fun is the fact that about ten minutes after the purchase of any one of these things they either break or her majesty is done with them. It took me a while, mommy is a bit slow on the uptake, but I finally figured out that we need to limit how much money we waste on this crap and contemplate the possibility of later resale. I’m sure the next thing she gets hooked on will be equally revolting or more so if it’s a boy band.

Another problem I’m running into is my escape plan. One would think that leaving the house and to anywhere that does not involve shopping would help. That’s only partially true because of the portability problem. Yes, folks thanks to technology you can take the stupid video games with you! The world will come to a crashing halt if anyone under the age of 14 is forced to go into a moving vehicle without an ipad, Nintendo DS, or smart phone. Oh, the humanity!

I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in my struggle. In fact, grown ups have the same issues. Just look in any doctors office and you’ll see plenty of people sitting around with their faces in their phones. I wish I could come up with a cure for our “electronic addiction”. Hey, is there an app for that??