Who knew a rubber band could be so exciting?

Silly Bandz have invaded our home. For those of you who don't know, though I am guessing I was really one of the last to know, these are shaped rubber band bracelets. And for whatever reason they are the rage with kids from two to who knows... teenagers even wear them. What's more surprising to me (not sure why) is that they are unisex bracelets. Meaning, doesn't matter if you are a girl or a boy, you love them the same. Now we had Jelly Bracelets when I was a kid, which were just round colored plastic bracelets, and they were the rage (thank you Madonna)... but only girls wore them. Those were big, these are even bigger. It's crazy.

When Silly Bandz entered our house, the boys converged on them excitedly. They went through them one by one, put them on, took them off, ooo'ed and ahhh'ed over them, traded them, bartered for them, fought over them, obsessed over them, slept next to them... I'm convinced they are some form of kiddie crack disguised as colored, shaped rubber bands. Really, there is no other explanation.

Yesterday, one of the boys' neighbor friends, Christopher, had a birthday party. For the first part of it, there wasn't much mention of these, instead they played with water related things. But after the presents, Silly Bandz became the buzz. Okay, yes, we got him some... Ethan insisted... I apologized to Christoper's mom already... but really... shouldn't they get to share in this crazy?

I brought the twins home after gifts, but Ethan and Steve stayed. Actually, all the kids went home, changed out of their water clothes, gathered up their bracelets and went back to Christopher's. Steve said that Silly Bandz were the main topic and focus of the remaining hour... among this group of boys. They traded them, compared them, showed them off, and just generally obsessed over them. Steve made the observation that what really was cool was when you had one no one else had... and decided to look for some of those on-line (yes, they suck in the 40 year olds too!). When he did this we found that there were all kinds of brands. Silly Bandz, Rubba Bandz (my favorite... just fun to say... Rubba), Zanybands, Memory Bands, Shaped Rubber Bands (I laughed that the unoriginality of this one, but found out they are from the original maker of the brand Silly Bandz), and the brand list goes on. They are themed, which we knew, but they can also be glow in the dark (Ethan kept telling us they existed and we needed to find them), tie dye, scented, glow and tie dye together, glitter, as well as licensed, as in movie characters, cartoon characters, sports teams, you name it. It's endless. I felt like I had just crawled out from under a rock. No comment please.

All this craze for something that cost pennies I am sure. Which begs the question, why can't we think of this stuff? Shaped, colored rubber band bracelets. Seriously?