Searching for Pokemon

You know a popular culture phenomenon is huge when it enters my field or awareness. Usually I remain somewhat blissfully unaware and my children amuse themselves by asking me questions such as, "Do you know _______?" When I reply no, I've never heard of them, they stare at me mystified and wonder how such a thing can happen. 

But back to Pokemon. That would be as in Pokemon Go, the new video game where you wander aimlessly and hopefully not into traffic, looking for little, imaginary Pokemon creatures. I'm still a little unclear about what happens to them once you catch them, but since my brain begins thinking about other things any time one of my children starts to explain it all to me, I will probably never know. I'm OK with that, really. I probably won't read any comments that try to explain it, either. 

The whole crew got a taste of Pokemon Go this past weekend because some of my older children had downloaded it and at rest stops and such, were busy searching for imaginary creatures. It surprised no one that the little people were also very excited by this imaginary creature hunting... it is right up their alley in a major way. The only trouble is, once the trip was over, their access to older siblings phones was cut short. 

Never fear! Imagination came to the rescue! While I was spending all day cleaning the dining room, I was vaguely aware of extreme imaginary games going on. I wasn't quite sure what they were, but children were occupied and I was able to continue with my task. It wasn't until bedtime that I fully came to realize what had been happening. G., L., and Y. (K. was at a day camp and H. and R. were involved in their own activities) had spent the day, knapsacks in hand, searching for Pokemon. By the end of the day, each girl had a knapsack full of stuffed animals which they had 'caught'. Y. was particularly excited by all of this and spent a long time when I was tucking her in telling me about her plans for future hunts in the morning.

We had two wins for yesterday. Lots of play which allowed me to really clean the dining room... removing pictures, dusting walls, etc. See? This clean dining room is brought to you by Pokemon Go.