Pokemon Cupcakes - Gotta Catch Them All!

It all started with the Gormiti. An Italian friend of my son's came back from vacation with these figurine monsters that all of a sudden all the kids wanted! My son scrapped and saved every centime he had to buy these beasties, to grow his collection, to outdo his friends who in turn were amassing small armies of these things themselves. He must have purchased a good 100 of them when suddenly one day, it was G'bye Gormiti and Hello Bakugan!

Now I have to admit, I kind of like the Bakugan. They are plastic balls that when introduced to a magnetic object pop open to reveal a creature inside. When a friend from the US came to visit last year and brought with him several Bakugan that were softball size (vs. the golf ball size we could only find here), that in turn became my son's obsession, and thus my mom's mission to find some and lug them over when she came for a visit.



The Bakugan stage was short-lived. Though that didn't keep my son from again begging for Bakugan and using any cash gifts given to him to increase his collection.



The start of the school year ushered in a new collecting craze. This time for Pokemon and that is all he has lived and breathed for the past few months.



Now, the thing that really makes me chuckle is that my son has no clue as to how to play the actual game that Pokemon is based on. I'm not sure that many of his friends do either. The goal in this case is just to amass as many cards as possible so you can pull this huge deck out of one of your pockets during recrée (recreation) or after-school to impress your friends.



Lately, my son will not stop talking about the rare ex cards. Apparently the likelihood of getting one card is about 1 in 36 packs bought. Do some quick math - 36 x 5 euros a pack, and you'll understand why I am trying to temper this fascination. My son is undeterred though; he has actually taken to drawing some ex cards of his own and slipping them into his deck in the hopes that none of his friends will know the difference! :)



He had a really good report card for this first 6 week period at school and so I promised him a deck of cards as a reward. We didn't have a chance to get to the store until yesterday to buy them. As we approached the register and I said, "Look, there are the Pokemons, which one do you want?" I heard my son pipe up and in perfect French ask the cashier, "But do you have any Yu-Gi-Oh Cards?" Oh man, here we go again!

These Pokemon cupcakes were requested by my niece who turns 7 today. Happy Birthday Mlle. P! Of course Pikachu was a given....



I kind of like this guy who is called Skelenox....


And one of my son's favorites: Headbutt....he is half-French after all!