Time like an ever rolling stream...

Having my first child at a fresh faced 28 makes me somewhat of an outlier in the bay area. Not to the point of where prim matrons cluck and tsk when I walk the streets with my soiled progeny, but still, at 35 I'm youngish for the parent of an (almost) 7 year old and a 4 year old. I'd always thought my relative youth was an advantage in relating to my kids, particularly in keeping up with their interests. I'd smile with thinly concealed disdain as some doddering mother (or was it grandma?) would ask if my son liked "Thomas the Train". I knew it was Thomas the Tank Engine. I knew the words to a vast majority of the songs, and enough characters that I could tell stories without once having to return to set pieces motivated by Henry's aversion to ever more improbable scenarios that might render him dirty. I assumed that this hipness to the three year old mind would grow as my children grew. To bastardize Terence (the dramatist, not the tractor) - I was a [young] man: I held that nothing [kidlike] was alien to me. I would always be cool and know what my kids liked.

And then there were Bionicles.

I wish I could put into words how befuddling I find their mythos. But then, I don't have to, as the good folks at Lego have done this for me. Please enjoy the following (I can only assume the stilted dialogue is due to the difficulty of finding a good translator of Bioniclese).

"The Turaga told an ancient tale of the Bohrok: the Toa must collect eight different types of krana from each of the six types of Bohrok in order to defeat the swarms. Despite villages being ravaged, the Toa and Matoran bravely fought the bugs. The Toa discovered a Bohrok nest and placed their Krana into niches within the tunnels, halting the swarm but unleashing Cahdok and Gahdok, the Bahrag twins. They commanded the Swarms. The Toa created an energized protodermis cage which traps the Bahrag, finally halting the swarms."

Trust me when I say that this is among the more comprehensible paragraphs.

As Conor fell for these creatures - insecto-robotic, crypto-polynesian incomprehensibilities, I felt all my smugness slipping away. I don't know what a Mata Nui is. I didn't realize that Toa Pota is not only a female, but god forbid an attractive one. I just don't....get it.

And so here I sit, sipping my prune juice and filing my bunions. However, I am somewhat comforted in that my spouse retains some semblance of hep. And as proof of that hepness, allow me to present the bionicle cake that she made for Conor's sixth birthday.








Oh. And don't even get me started on Bakugan.