Octopus Crime: what a difference a year makes
One of neighbors has a son who is 4. My son Alex is just about to turn 3. But what a difference a year seems to make!
The other day they were playing, and both have ‘Transformers’ toys from the movie. As I’ve been reminded, the bad guys are the Decepticons, who just as often take shape of tanks or planes, while the good guys are the Autobots, who are apparently always cars or trucks. When I was growing up I guess I was just a little too old for the Transformers TV show; I remember it being on, but thinking it was too childish. My friends all liked Robotech instead. Well actually, we liked girls by then, but Robotech was a lot more accessible.
Back to the story at hand–so my son has Barricade, the mustang-derived police-car bad guy (Decepticon, sorry) which is a very impressively designed little toy, and pretty snazzy looking. It’s damn near impossible to get back from ‘robot mode’ to ‘car mode’ for me (although his mother seems to manage it fairly well). Anyhow, the neighbor kid has “Optimus Prime. He’s the leader of the Autobots”. Alex, who hasn’t seen the movie (nor will for many more years if I have anything to say about it), said “Oct-o-pus CRIME?” which I definitely got a kick out of. He was pretty confused, though, and the neighbor kid started reenacting scenes from the movie, which just confused Alex more. Understand that Alex really likes to play with this kid, and tries to impress him. Alex starts claiming to have seen the movie (I don’t think he even understands that there really is a Transformers movie.) The neighbor starts in again with “I have Optimus Prime”, Alex responds “I have that Transformer too!” (he doesn’t). The neighbor: “I have another Transformer too” (he does). Alex: “Me too!” Neighbor: “You dooo?” Alex: “I have ALL of them!”, and the verbal arms battle continued, until Alex was practically claiming to own Toys ‘R Us.
Eventually, this devolved into them each transforming their toys into robot mode and chasing each other around doing the “pyew pyew pyew” laser shooting noise, which took Alex all of 16 milliseconds to learn from the neighbor. But they had fun, got a little exercise, and shared pretty well, so it was OK in the end. I just can’t believe the difference a year seems to make in their level of sophistication! It’s going to be another interesting year, it seems, as a Dad. But I can guarantee you Alex still isn’t going to see the Transformers movie anytime soon!