Playing along

Who the boys are: two examples each

The Tamagotchi examples:

A few months ago, every kid on the street suddenly had a Tamagotchi. For the uninitiated amongst us, Tamagotchis are wee electronic keychain pets. With horrible graphics. You’re supposed to feed and care for the Tamagotchi by pressing the right buttons when it beeps, and if all goes well it grows up and gets a job and has an egg (delivered, as I understand, because what’s the use of simulating a life cycle if you’re not going to leave the interesting parts out?), and then you can start all over with the next generation.

Sounds painfully boring to me. Also, I have to confess, I had thought they were sort of…a girl thing. I know, terrible gender stereotyping. Doesn’t matter, because the boys could apparently not care less what I think is a “girl thing” and when all the kids they knew showed up with their Tamagotchis, making friends with each other, well. The boys quickly realized they were the only Sneetches on the block without stars upon thars, and a yearning was born.

Max was the first one to buy one. I struggled mightily to talk him out of it, because he was saving for something else at the time, and I was sure he’d regret it. He wept and tore at his hair and fell on the floor and wept some more. Ooooohhhhh, how he wanted one – NEEDED one. When we finally agreed to take him to buy one, he joyfully filled the time between the agreement and the actual trip with more flailing around, suffering for the love of his Tamagotchi to be. Tre and Raphael followed soon after, and soon the house was filled with the beeps and chirrups of much loved electronic creatures.

“Oh, look,” Raphael would croon, “he made a poo.” That’s another thing. You have to clean up their poop. Seriously. And yet when I hand them a plastic baggie and point them to the back yard (aka Carmi’s great bathroom), they are unenthused about the opportunity.

“I think mine’s going to be a ROCK STAR,” Max exclaimed.

“Not mine,” Tre sighed, “he’s terrible at music lessons.”

In the end, here’s how the Tamagotchi phase played out.

Tre successfully raised several generations in a row. All the boys were named Lucky, and all the girls were named LuLu. Because LuLu is just a funny name.

Max lost interest after a month or so and took his Tamagotchi outside and smashed it open with a hammer to see what was inside. He carried the pieces around for weeks, and after finding shards of it in the bottom of the washer, I eventually threw it out. He is now writhing on the floor, wanting to go buy a Nintendo DS. Now. OH PLEEEEEEEEASE.

Raphael frequently loses his, and has starved scores of little Tamagotchi creatures. Raphael believes himself to be an excellent Tamagotchi parent.

The birthday poster examples:

We have a birthday tradition, a holdover of my childhood, wherein birthdays are celebrated with posters. We all make posters and put them up to express our love for the birthday person. Last September, when my mom and dad (otherwise known as Amma and Appa) celebrated their birthdays, here are the posters the boys made for them.

Tre’s posters:

P1010001_2

He has discovered a format that is correct. Wish a happy birthday. Fill in empty space with lots of balloons.

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Any good wishes that occur may be added below the “Happy Birthday, ____” Another successful poster is conquered. Excellent.

Max’s posters:

P1010006

As you can see, there’s a lot more passion than order here.

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You’ll have to trust me when I tell you there was plenty of humor tucked in there. The simple truth is that sometimes the intensity of the feeling overwhelms the message. Oh yes.

Raphael’s posters:

Lord, are these funny. What do they MEAN? Who cares? They’re FABULOUS.

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Just ask Raphael. He’ll tell you. Fabulous.

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And if you have criticisms, like say, if you were to tell him that this…

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…is not actually how an “h” is written in cursive, well, you can just save your breath. Because you clearly don’t understand.

And! An EXTRA! BONUS! insight into Clay!

His poster for my mom:

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Birthday wishes for his mother-in-law that work in a reference to my beauty. He is a genius.

Comments

Miss Cee

Oh, I love these little indications of their different personalities, especially the posters - how funny! I rather like Max's passionate scribbles :-)

Heather

I had a tamgotchie when I was in high school, believe it or not. I can't believe they are still around.

Mir

Yes, but... why is Tre's poster covered in SPERM?

*ducking*

Groovecatmom

Wow...that is genius.

And, electronic poop is so much more fun than actual poop. My girl is forever asking if she can clean the electronic bathroom but flails mightily when asked to clean the real bathroom. She tells me I should be Mrs. Weasley...I tell her if I were Mrs. Weasley, I wouldn't have my girl. Hmph.

Kristy

A. If "genius" is what we call someone these days who understands that writing "beautiful" about you on a poster for all to see increases his chances of getting lucky later, then I suppose I'm willing to go along with the "Clay is genius" declaration.
B. I think Mir and I could be friends.
C. More disturbing to me than cleaning up the poop on Tamagotchis is the fact that if you DON'T they will DIE. I don't know, but dying in your own feces just seems a little harsh when young children are tending to the dot matrix pet.

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