Ninja- GO!!!

Breckin is really into Legos.  Of the various lego sets, his favorite are the Ninjago.  And, of the Ninjago- the best are the spinjitzu.  Got that?

So, the super genius-now very wealthy creators at Lego came up with a story line of ninjas and skeletons and snakes that battle each other and can turn regular cars and trucks into insane machines that have chopping blades and shoot ice bullets and teach my child words like scythe and katana.  And they have special lego sets that come with a skeleton or ninja minifigure, a little disc that it stands on, and three or four little weapons that range from wooden staff (lame!) to The Sword of Fire (supercool).  You give your guy a weapon, lock his feet on the disc, and spin it with your thumb and finger.  Like I said.  Genius.  There is an infinite number of combinations of dudes and weapons and discs AND they have cards you can play to give your guy extra powers like standing on one leg or adding a lego to the bottom of the disc to make him taller or using two weapons.  Yes, we are creating little D&D kids one at a time.  Different ninjas have different powers- fire, ice, lightning, and earth- and they can only use certain cards.  So no two kids have the same dude and weapon and card and spinner.

Now, because they aren't genius enough, the Lego store in our local mall hosted a tournament for kids to battle each other- beating mom is too easy by now- and have the chance to win the giant Ninjago lego set of "Destiny's Bounty".  The flying ninja ship that they live on.  Ooooohhhh.  Aaaahhhh.  Of course Drew (refer to the post about Breckin and his grown up friends) entered Breckin in this tournament and basically just let us know which day to show up last time we were there.  Of course he did.

We practiced his spinning skills pretty much every day leading up to the tournament.  And so did every other 5-10 year old boy (and one girl!!) so by the time we arrived for our 5:00 show down, the place was manic with kids who were certain they were going to win this ship.  Breckin threw in the added touch of wearing his actual Sword Of Fire.  (He chose, however, not to go with the ninjago tshirt in favor of his Boba Fett shirt as it was opening day of Star Wars back in the theater.  Naturally.)

Drew was hosting the event.  Breckin was up first, as he was one of the youngest, and battled well.  He won his first round by knocking off the other guy twice.  Go Buddy!  Then we had to wait around (oh, look.  a Lego store to wait around in) until his next round.  There were something like 24 kids so it took a while.  He won his second round.  More waiting around.  He got to the last round before the final face off and lost.  Not by getting knocked off the spinner but because the other guy's spinner spun longer.  Weak sauce.  He handled it extremely well, shook hands, showed Drew that he wore his ninja sword, and - because, really? can you leave the Lego store after being there for an hour without picking something?- chose Jay's Storm Fighter plane.  Sweet.

I was so proud of his patience during rounds and, most importantly, how he lost.  Drew came by after the tournament was over and said he was so sad when Breckin lost on a technicality.  He was really hoping Breckin would win the day's event.  We thanked him for hosting such a cool thing for the kids.  Those damn genius Lego people.    

Pictures of Lego time and other February stuff are over there ---->