I sense a disturbance in the force

I know I've mentioned my 6 year old son's obsession with Star Wars in previous posts. It began in the early Fall when he and Mr. Crackers started playing the Wii game Lego Star Wars. After just a couple of hours, he was hooked (so was Mr. Crackers).



Since then, we've allowed him to watch (our own slightly edited versions of ) most of the Star Wars movies. He's even seen a couple episodes of The Clone Wars. Of course we knew we were feeding his addiction, but since Mr. Crackers & I are also Star Wars fans it seemed like a fun thing to do as a family.



Of course, this has all come back to bite me in my ever expanding behind because now almost every conversation I have with C comes back to his favorite subject.



"Hey Mom, remember when Jabba the Hutt ate that frog in front of Luke Skywalker? That was so gross."

"Hey Mom, remember when Luke was fighting Darth Vader and that the Emperor shot blue lightning out of his fingers. That was so cool."

"Hey Mom, remember how R2D2 fell into the water when he and Luke were visiting Yoda? That was so funny."



I could go on and on. But I will spare you.



He's even infected his younger sister (or Princess Leia as she now likes to refer to herself) with his Star Wars mania. The two of them chase each other around the house reenacting scenes from the movies. I'm trying not to let it worry me that 9 times out of 10 C wants to be the bad guy and use the dark side of the force. Hopefully this is not foreshadowing something evil lurking beneath the surface of his psyche.



I've explained to both of my hooligans that the stories from Star Wars are make-believe and that they all came from the imagination of the enormously creative George Lucas. I'm not sure that C believes me though.



I've caught him trying to use "the force" on quite a few occasions. Just this afternoon he was standing alone in the yard with his right arm stretched out in front of him - the fingers of his hand were stretched forward like he was reaching for something. He seemed to be staring back into the woods behind our house. I had no idea what was going on. I was about to head out & ask him if something was wrong when I realized what he was doing. He was trying to use "the force" to retrieve his soccer ball from the back garden.



It was a riot. He just stood there, still as can be for about a minute, totally focused on his goal. Then he put the fingers of his left hand up to his forehead (I'm sure this was to help him better focus). After a few more minutes he moved a bit to the right then tried it again. He even tried one more time from a sitting position.



Finally, he gave up and ran over the ball. He then, in typical fashion, ran around the yard wildly kicking the ball until he saw me standing at the door.



"Hey buddy", I said "What are you up to?"



"Just playing soccer Ma."



"Anything else?"



"Nope", he replied.



We headed inside & I asked him. "Tried to use the force lately?"



He just grinned at me, rolled his eyes and said "M-o-m. Geez!" and then ran off to get a Capri Sun.



Mr. Crackers & C finally finished playing Lego Star Wars on Wii last weekend. I guess after about 5 months, they had explored everything the game had to offer. So this past Sunday, they broke out the new game that Mr. Crackers had gotten for Christmas - Lego Batman.



We have already told C he won't be watching those movies, but I know he'll pick up a lot from just playing the game. I'm a little nervous about what waits for me on the horizon. If he starts trying to sleep hanging upside down I'm pulling the plug (and calling a therapist.)