So, tomorrow (March 1st) is Samuel’s 7th birthday.  For about a month now, we’ve been (or rather HE has been) counting down the days until this weekend.  With his birthday on a Sunday, we decided to have his PARTY on Saturday.  That’s today.  FINALLY!  (A person can only take so many “how many more days, mom… how many more days?”)

Samuel asked for, and is getting, a party at Chuck E Cheese.  You know, loud atmosphere, iffy pizza, all the sodas they can drink, and free tokens for all the kids that will last about 5.2 minutes.  I really cannot wait!

(Side note – we can tell the effects of the economy because there are NO other parties scheduled for noon today.   Good news for us, bad for the economy).

So, for about two months now (basically since Christmas), Samuel has been keeping us updated on the “long list” of what he wants for his birthday.  It’s a really simple list, actually.  If it doesn’t start with “bion” and end in “icle”, he doesn’t want it.  There just happen to be about 106 different kinds of Bionicles one can get. (And if you ask me, they all look about 95% the same).

I think it’s a boy thing, because I can’t remember ever being THIS obsessed with ANYTHING.  But Samuel?  He is OBSESSED!!  The child starts playing with his bionicle pieces the moment he wakes up, and I have to physically take them away to get him to eat breakfast and get ready for school.  He walks through the door at the end of the school day, and is playing with Bionicles before he takes his coat or shoes off.  And bedtime?  Forget it.  Lately, we send them off to bed and 2 hours later we can hear the sounds of plastic lego pieces snapping together and coming apart.

The child is Over The Moon Obsessed with Bionicles.

During his class party yesterday (which basically consisted of me bringing in cupcakes, and lots of messy faces and hands), he regaled the entire class with tales of Bionicles.

“Um, they are plastic… and they have lots of little pieces, and you can put them together in all kinds of ways.  They have little ones, medium ones, big ones…. “  On and on he went, and apparently it was intriguing enough, because all 15 sets of eyes were on him while he described his passion.

So, you know… that is ALL he wants for his birthday.  And I’ve tried to let people know when they ask what he wants.

The problem is, to someone who is NOT obsessed with them – they all really do look the same, except they come in a few different colors.   The least the Lego company could have done was give them EASY names to remember.  But, uh, no.  They have names like Toa Gali and Toa Tahu and Kresh and Qskdjf.  Ok, not the last one, but they may as well be that hard.  Samuel has only told me a MILLION times (not an exaggeration) which ones he wants, and when I went to Walmart?  Darned if I couldn’t remember a single name.

I ended up with this guy:

At least I think that’s the one I got.  I know he has two others from this particular “series” of characters.  I think.

At this point, I’m just hoping that folks accidentally get him 1) Bionicles and 2) different Bionicles.

Although when I asked Samuel what he would do if people got him the same one, he said, “NO problem – I’ll just put them together to make a GREAT BIG one”.  This was after getting over his incredulity that anyone would NOT know which ones he wants and get him the RIGHT ones.

So, we’ll get ready this morning and head to the house of mouse and pizza around lunchtime.  And we’ll keep our fingers crossed for a few Bionicles.  (Note to self: have discussion with Samuel about the possibility that he might get OTHER gifts besides Bionicles.  Encourage thankfulness in spite of bionicle-less gift).

Oh, one last thing.  When discussing his cake, he suggested the REALLY COOL IDEA that we put Bionicles on TOP of it for decoration.  Now, I frowned a minute when he said this, because I’m thinking, “yeah, I am not spending money on NEW Bionicles for your cake, and there is NO WAY I’m putting the Bionicle pieces on the cake that you have been playing with every day with your grubby little 6 year old boy DIRTY hands”.

He had the perfect solution, of course.  Sometime in the last month or two, McDonalds or Burger King had mini Bionicles as their kids’ meal toys.  (OH, the JOY!)  We happen to have a few of these miniature size, cute little Bionicles. (Well, cute is the wrong word, but you know what I mean).  SO, Samuel thinks these would be the PERFECT thing to put on the cake.

It was actually a pretty good idea, because it’s SIMPLE and quick and wow, the cake will be decorated in a jiffy!  So, yesterday?  I put four mini Bionicles in the dishwasher to be cleaned up for cake decorating duty.  Since that time, Samuel has found three more in the toy box, but I told him the cake isn’t THAT big.  Four Bionicles on the cake should do it.

I just hope there is room for the candle!

Happy Saturday, everyone!

P.S. Does anyone know of any Bionicle related digital scrapbook kits?