My wonderfully talented fellow blogger Christina recently did a cartoon categorising her son's interests into 'eras'.
It really struck a chord with me - Billy too goes through stages where he is completely obsessed with a topic, and then just as suddenly, he switches to a new one.
Some of the stages I remember are:
* The Doodlebops era - this was a Canadian kid's show with brightly coloured 'people' - lots of singing and dancing. This was possibly as far back as preschool days for him. Every day he'd watch the Doodlebops over and over again, want to dress up like them, make instruments like them.
* The magic era - he was obsessed with magic some time after that. Watching magic shows, learning magic tricks, putting on magic shows to anyone who would stand still (or not!)
* The Ben 10 era - a kid's cartoon about a young boy who fights aliens by turning into various creatures with the help of his watch-like Omnitrix. This was only a year or so ago. He had (probably still has somewhere) the Ominitrix, the Ben 10 games, the Ben 10 pyjamas....
* The Simpsons era - this was last year from my very shaky memory. He had to watch every single episode of the 20(?) seasons of the Simpsons. Several times. Now he denies ever liking them :)
* The Club Penguin era - Suji can attest to this one. A kid's online gaming community where you 'waddle round and meet new friends'...
* The Minecraft era - this is the latest. An online game where you wander round and build things out of materials that you mine from the ground.
I actually realised you can track a lot of his eras by what cake he had for that birthday party!
We've had smaller obsessions along the way where he will watch every season of a show constantly - Prank Patrol and Scorpion Island spring immediately to mind. They come and go...
Then of course are the book stages - the Dr Seuss phase, the Roald Dahl phase, the Goosebumps phase. Currently its a Specky Magee phase.
And when he's in one of those phases, every single word that comes out of his mouth seems to start with "In Ben 10 / The Simpsons / Minecraft / Club Penguin / insert current obsession here ..."
Mind you, I don't want to look too closely at myself and my own interests or I might just find a similar trend (hmmm, the frugal stage, the gardening phase, the knitting phase, the writing phase...) Yep, better not to go there!
7 comments:
I've noticed this in Elijah, too. I call them his obsessions. Motorbikes, Firefighting, Excavators, Army, Dinosaurs, Drums, Police, Knights ... and I've found I feel a bit sad when I realise he's moved past an obsession.
Minecraft sounds creative ... I have to confess ignorance to most computer games. Sounds like a lot of fun! Do you play too?
I have to say I am not particularly liking the minecraft era. This particular obsession has Zak setting up a server from our house and involving a few friends which means of course that he "needs" to be online far more than I think is necessary. Also causing late nights, sleep ins and lack of motivation towards other learning. Although the game itself is a lot nicer than some of the online games my boys like, I am once again trying to drag them out of the house and away from the computers.
Oh such true words!!
I find that as I become enthusiastic/find materials for his obsession he is suddenly moving on to something new. can be frustrating!!
Oh and yes, I refuse to look at my own obsessions!
Isn't it interesting how this works? And then I have my daughters who tend to revisit their eras. Except for dolls. Those eras are well defined: Baby, Barbie, American Girl, and now my oldest could probably use a dressmaker's mannekin. :o)
Thank you for the mention. I'm glad you enjoyed the strip!
Peace and Laughter,
Cristina
I call them obsessions or phases...and most have been very interesting, even macabre at times. :) I remember the Club Penguin one all right!
I've enjoyed all my boys' phases except the current one--Pokemon! Ack! It's like they are speaking a foreign language all the time!
Risa, I am *very* glad to have escaped the Pokemon era :)
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