JEDi kids.

Muffin, like his brother has obsessions. Once hooked, everything has got to be about it. His obsession, is Star Wars. It's been like this for the last 6 months, ever since he saw the Jedi Academy at Anaheim last year. It's funny because his peers have no idea what Star Wars is. Ben 10, yes. Despicable Me, yes. Cars, yes. Star Wars? What is that?

On his birthday, we brought muffins in for the Muffin with Star Wars toppers and only the teachers knew who the characters were. Once again, his classmates had the "WHAT IS THIS?" look on their faces. But it hasn't stopped him. In fact, it's taken over his life. Pretty much.

Much of what he has picked up in the first half of this year has come in the form of Star Wars related stuff. Books that he started on were Star Wars readers and he learnt slightly out of context words like "duck" (the verb not the noun) and learning how to spell Star Wars from packaging. He's even coloured some of Packrat's Star Wars books. Thankfully, Packrat was more amused than annoyed though we did give him a talking to about colouring the figures in Papa's book. 

 

For me, it's been a crash course in Star Wars vernacular. My brothers and even Packrat tried without fail to get me interested. No go. But because of Muffin and to some extent, Evan (he loves them but he's a lot more independent in seeking out information now), I have had to learn more than I would have voluntarily done so. Of course, I still make mistakes like refer to the TIE fighter as a Ty-fighter much to Packrat's annoyance. 

His obsession drives the twins crazy because they get suckered into their good versus bad battles where Muffin constantly claims he can 'grow back'; therefore good never being able to defeat bad. In fact, the sense of righteous justice that the twins have cause them to be annoyed with Muffin who wants them to play with him but constantly announces that come what may, he cannot be defeated. Evan, on this occasion, has a whole lot more patience than Jordan, to talk geek with Muffin about Star Wars. Jordan likes the books and occasionally the play acting, but doesn't like the movies and the extended obsession that the boys are more capable of.

And when they abandon him, he creates his own world and fights his own battles. He has these etchings of light sabre battles and nothing else. He spends ages creating them, with 5 crayons (Green, Red, Blue, Black and Purple). From them, he is able to narrate a tale of who is fighting whom and who won. Sometimes he exaggerates; General Grevious having MANY light sabres.

  

Evan's Clone Wars book. Not Muffin's.

So it doesn't come as a surprise that he dresses up as his characters. When he didn't have the proper outfits, he would improvise. His sister's dress up scarves as a robe, a recorder, connectable tubes and pipes or sticks for his light sabre and recently a toy pot as Darth Vader's breathing apparatus. When he watches the cartoons or the movies, it isn't a couch potato experience for him. He is leaping and fighting with his light sabres, mimicking the battle scenes, which are unsurprisingly his favourite parts.

As indulgent parents with a little bit of a fan boy/ girl thing going, we have hunted for Star Wars opportunities for them; from a May the Fourth (Force) event with life sized Star Wars characters to hunting down encyclopaedia sets for Evan and art classes for Muffin.

Muffin still laps it up. Every thing Star Wars. When I found out that an art studio (heART Studio) was running Star War art classes, I think I was first in line to book a spot for him. By nature, he's almost as reticent as Evan about trying new things and he clung onto me for dear life as we walked into the studio. All the way there, he was begging me to 'stay for a long time' rather than 'for a little while' as I had promised. But when he saw the images that he could choose to paint, he declared he wanted to paint both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. When I told him, he could only pick one, he said he had to come back again to do the other one. That, from a kid who was hiding behind me five minutes earlier and not wanting me to leave. 

And the earnest conversations he had with me after that about how Obi-Wan Kenobi's light sabre had two blues because there were crystals inside that made it special. It went over my head but it made me smile because he's so geek about it.

I'm not sure how long this love affair will go on for but for now, it's all encompassing. Evan realised recently that if we added an 'I' to the end of the acronym-ed name (JED), it would make Jedi. This immediately started a conversation with both boys campaigning for a younger sibling to form the perfect (in their eyes, not mine) acronym. Not likely, boys. Not even in the galaxy far far away.