Poke your what?

My kids have recently gotten "into" Pokemon cards. Apparently they are a hot commodity during the bus ride to and from school.

The five minute bus ride. I can't imagine that they have time to wrestle the enormous tins of cards out of their full-to-bursting backpacks, much less partake in any kind of serious bartering.

I am not clear at all on the valuation method the kids use to determine a "fair" trade. It all seems very arbitrary to me, but I guess as long as they are cool with the outcome and I don't have to develop any significant level of understanding or waste any of my few precious brain cells on this, I should just let it go.

I saw something in a magazine recently about making your own trading cards for kids. Cut their favorite characters out of magazines, or print them from the internet. Glue them on index cards, and voila, happiness will ensue.

I have to say that I think whoever wrote that is delusional. Or has extremely clueless children.

That would NEVER fly with my kids - or the neighbors' kids - or really, any actual cognizant child I have ever seen. They know the real deal and can be amazingly detailed in their requirements for specifics. Anyone who has tried (as I have, I never learn) to pass off cut-rate toys as the real deal knows I speak the truth here.

Do you see up there how very many Pokemon characters there are? And therefore how very many cards my children feel that they need to have? And don't even get me started on the Level X and whatever else there is that makes the HUGENORMOUS pile of cards they each have DRAMATICALLY deficient.

I have been tasked today with taking Tater's allowance (because I am not spending *my* money on these things...although I suppose the allowance came from *my* money...but I digress...) and finding him a Level X Torterra card. Because the Torterra card he already has isn't sparkle-y enough or something.

We were at Target on Tuesday afternoon to pick up some medicine and on the way to the pharmacy, we passed the trading card display. Both children began to dance and plead for cards, but Sprout gave it up pretty quickly when I told her she was welcome to bring her birthday or allowance money back and waste *ahem* I mean spend it to her hearts content on all the Pokemon cards she wanted.

However, Tater collapsed in a small boy shaped ball of misery on the floor and proceeded to whine, and beg, and cry and repeatedly chant "But I NEED them". I was strong, I did not cave. I did not float him a loan, although it would have been significantly less painful.

So yesterday afternoon, he wanted to go back with his money. But homework took forever. And today they have karate after school. And if I have to listen to the begging again, I may have to curl into my own mommy shaped ball of misery.

So here I am, off to Target in search of Torterra.

Unless I can find an index card and some glitter.