I’m not organized. But I’m working on it. When it comes to organization I am a pile person. When the mail comes in, I make piles. When cleaning clutter in a room I make piles. I fold the laundry into piles. Our homeschooling books are often in piles in the schoolroom. All of those piles may never go anywhere but they feel like they’re in a semi-organized state when they’re at least in piles.

When thinking about parenting, I tend to organize the stages of parenting into piles as well. Pile One includes parents of young children who are just starting out on the parenting journey. They are very green and are usually eager for advice but haven’t yet had aquired enough experience to offer advice themselves. Pile Two is the group of parents who have one or more teenagers. They have been through enough diapering, terrible twos and threes, potty-training, and room parent fiascos with their young children to offer advice to Pile Ones. Then I lump all the rest of the parents into Pile Three, those whose kids are all grown up and have left the nest. If you are ever offered advice from this pile, I would “cleave unto” it because it has evolved through lots of trial and error. I consider it solid and sage advice. It may seem trivial and ridiculous and unsolicited to the greenest Pile Ones, but the closer I get to becoming a Pile Three, the wiser this advice becomes.

When our oldest became a teenager last week, we officially become Pile Twos. By now I’ve collected enough experience to share some wisdom with others. (But am equally open to receiving advice as well.)

So, my wisdom for you today is this.

Children come to us with their own unique personalities and preferences.

This may seem obvious to Pile Twos and Threes, and maybe even to a smattering of Pile Ones. But I remember when I was a Pile One reading lots of parenting books. In them I can recall reading lots of fluff and stuff about how the toys you offer your child will greatly influence their career choice in the future. (Or something like that). As if supplying my daughter with cars and trucks would create a future racecar driver or, heaven forbid, the best dang Caterpillar operator in town. I now know better but, being a Pile One at the time, I chose to cleave to advice like that. So, I filled my daughter’s room with pink foo-foo and dolls, dresses and tea sets. My son was inundated with cars and Nerf footballs, trains and books. You can probably guess the outcome. My daughter abhorred dresses and pink, preferring to wear her little brother’s jerseys and baseball caps. Luckily, the love of books stuck with our son but he has never been intereseted in any sort of ball or car or train. He would rather read an encyclopedia, build a model volcano, or watch the Discovery Channel than anything else. No, there is not a sporting bone in his body. (Except maybe a tiny tibia for golf)

We now know better and it is no surprise to us that, at the age of nine, he has developed a fascination with something neither my husband nor myself can even wrap our brains around. It’s so foreign to us that we can’t even have a conversation with him about it, proving that his interests have nothing whatsoever to do with our influence on him. He has discovered:

POKEMON!

I won’t pretend to understand it. I only know that it involves cards (lots and lots of cards). He lives and breathes this right now. It’s hard to find others with the same passion. He has a couple of friends who can appreciate it enough to play with him. But on the whole, Pokemon lovers are few and far between, at least in these parts.

So, when he found a listing for a Pokemon tournament in the newspaper, he was adamant that he wanted to go. I thought, “OK, he doesn’t ask for much, I’ll take him down and we’ll watch for awhile.” Well, not only did he want to go, he also wanted to play in the tournament! Now knowing nothing about Pokemon (as I mentioned before) I didn’t know if you had to sign up or be invited or be some kind of Pokemon champion to play. But, a few emails back and forth to the league guy and he had the go ahead to play in the tournament.

So the week before the tournament was spent preparing the card deck and scouring the state of Idaho for one particular card that he absolutely had to have. It was a dark energy that he “needed so he could use his attack ground burn with Tyranator.” (His words, not mine). Luckily, trusty old Tar-gee held the treasure and we were on our way.

On the day of the tournament, with the help of our Mapquest print-out and this handy dandy sign,

we found the right place. Walking into the tournament, the room was filled with what really can only be described as “future programmers”. The kids looked oddly similar to the kids we had just watched compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. These were kids who shared a passion for this oddly complex japanese card game.

We checked in, and with the help of the awesome fellow Pokemon dad/local league organizer, registered the card deck and settled in to watch these kids in action. Unfortunately, there was an odd number of players and they needed an extra body to even out the teams. Of course, being the eager social beaver that he is, my husband jumped at the chance, and soon found himself head to head with a member of the Pokemon Masters division.

After three hours of friendly competition, my son had won his division and earned a pile of 8 booster packs, a medal card and an official Pokemon pin. His dad had earned a pile of his own starting deck and a pile of insight into how the game is played. His fellow competitors even offered to share thier pile of hot Cheetos with him. Our day was a success. It marked our entry into Pile Two parenthood.

It just goes to show that no matter how you try to influence your kids, they each have an innate sense of who they are and what they like. Now I’m off to sort through a pile of dirty laundry.