Nancy Drew and the case of the missing Skylander

Gemma Chatzipanagiotis - 7 Mar 19

My son WAS obsessed with Skylanders.
For his birthday last month, I visited every gaming shop in Glasgow. Before entering each shop, I practiced what to say. Ready for any questions, Imaginators, Skylanders? I learned all the characters names, screen shot the portals, and pleaded with bored store attendants.

Apart from yelping with pain, every time I bend down to pick a toy up, it is the oldest I have felt in a very long time. My son can work the TV, the computer, the iPad, the Nintendo Switch, better than me. He rolls his eyes at me daily suggesting I change the HDMI. Check the WIFI. Change the batteries. Find the charger. On Christmas day, I spent four hours building a Nintendo Labo. A giant cardboard robot, strapped to his back that projected him as a robot on to the TV.

It is exhausting.

He has full conversations with Alexa and Suri. Google is a word used every day. Like the dictionary in the school library, Google is his go to. She has all the answers his bewildered Mama does not.

I hate the bitch.

My mind is very rarely at rest. Even when I am sitting still, my brain rolls round like a little determined hamster on a wheel. The hamster loves a google. If I happen to glance at my last Google searches in a day, I am certain I have finally lost my sleep-deprived mind.

What does it mean when my four year old does not pee for 24 hours?
Who is the evolved form of Pikachu?
How to get to Vietnam cheap.
What does a raised spot on my right inner thigh indicate?
What age will I be when my child is 35.

And so on.

After trawling every shop, I hit the jackpot with kind donations and a chance visit to Cash Converters. We arrived at his birthday dinner with fistfuls of the things. All lined up and introduced to the rest of the family. Alongside the hamster in my head, I have now filed an encyclopaedia of Skylanders. I am fluent.

There I thought. Peace.

Two days later and my son became the proud owner of two magnets. Suri and Google were called upon, and off I went again.

How do magnets work?
If my son were to ingest a magnet what would happen?

Like a modern day marble, they are in his hands constantly. Click. Click .Click.

“Papa! Stop the car, I have dropped a magnet”

“Mamma my magnets are inside the bed covers. Not the duvet, the actual sheet.”

Everything is actual.

In I go. Searching for the buggars. When I find them a feeling of achievement washes over me. I can just make out the silhouette of my children cheering and applauding.
The magnets came with us to see the new Lego movie. The evil villain being a future self of the central character. Time travel and the temporal paradox are this week’s focus.

My son and his cousins all talk in a strange language too.

“Hey dude you are such a doof nugget. Actual.”

I start to Google some supposed chicken nugget hybrid.

Hashtag this. Hashtag that. Lack is the word of the moment. “Mamma, you are so LACK.” With a big L finger shoved in my face.

Emoji’s? Another mind field. Up until recently I though the folded hands, meant praying, or one hopes. NO mama its thank you.
My sister also recently advised me that the water drops does not mean sweating, but in fact male bodily fluids.

Excellent.

Gym session done. WATERDROPS
Cleaning day done. WATERDROPS

I often wonder if my own mother felt the same, but I cannot see how.

The complexities of a Polly Pocket?
The hidden key in my Clark’s school shoe?
Castles made up of mountains of Nancy Drew books.
It all seems so much simpler.

Actually.

Gemma Chatzipanagiotis

I am mum to 2 young kids who are my world. I have struggled with anxiety and depression in recent years whilst trying to be the best I can be for them. I write a blog called MummyMrsMe which is my therapy, my "ME" time, and I hope, a good wee read..

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