Tikkabik

So with parents whose obsessions and interests run the gamut from Japanese animation to computer and video games, it's little surprise that our brood is showing strong geek traits themselves.

Even my five year old James, who's unquestionably the most normalized of all of us, with good social skills and athletic tendencies none of the rest of us have, has fallen victim to this.

Today I walked him to the school bus and I noticed he had a stack of paper squares with figures drawn on them -- some quite elaborate in their illustration.

"What's that in your hand, James?" I asked.

"My card game," he said.

"Your what?"

"My CARD GAME," he said, a little less patiently. Robert turned him on to card games a while back -- Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, and Pokemon.

"A card game you made yourself?" I asked.

"Yeah," he told me. "It's about robot dragons."