My Little Patriot

My oldest son seems to jump from obsession to another… You can almost mark each year of his life with a theme…when he was 4 it was Spiderman… he was Spiderman for Halloween had a Spiderman birthday party when he turned 5 and everything we played/talked about… was Spiderman…. until the next year when he was Bumblebee for Halloween had a Transformers birthday party that spring… then came Star Wars and hat was an EPIC obsession… I swear for a good solid year all and I mean ALL we talked about was Star Wars… I learned so much about the characters and movie plots during that year.  Literally every question and almost everything out of his mouth during our Florida vacation was Star Wars related. 

I kinda thought we’d never leave that Star Wars obsession, what with the Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network, Lego Star Wars on the Wii…and the many life long Star Wars geeks fans I’ve seen out and around.

While he still does really enjoy Star Wars,  his obsession for year 7 of his life has become the American Revolution.  Now that he is an avid reader (a fact that I still can’t stop smiling about) his obsession is quite easily fed with books.  I find myself making trip upon trip to the library checking out every book in his reading level I can find relating to the American Revolution… he loves George Washington, Nathan Hale, Benjamin Franklin…he’s watching Liberty’s Kids through Netflix, listened to the Founding Fathers Adventures in Odyssey enough times we can all quote it and as I listen to him play downstairs I hear him call out, “Make ready, Arms… pre-sent arms… Don’t fire unless fired upon… don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”  We discuss the ranges of cannon fire and what a bayonet is… we discuss gunpowder and muzzle loading….  My favorite question he’s asked so far concerning the American Revolution is

“Why did they call it the Revolutionary War?  Shouldn’t it have been called a Civil War since we were technically English and fighting against England?”

He decided in the beginning of September that he wanted to be George Washington for Halloween and I am so thankful my mom was willing to make him a costume b/c it isn’t easy to find in the Halloween section of Target…  He’s also decided he wants to have an “American Revolution” themed birthday party when he turns 8 this spring.   I’m going to have to get real creative to pull that one off.

I love his current obsession and am doing all I can to feed it.  I love the fact that he came about it all on his own.  I didn’t force it on him.  In fact we’re not even studying it in school this year.  And I love that he asked if there was an American Revolution Lego game for the Wii.