Lady Pony Gaga
Jennifer Flaten

We are one Twilight Sparkle and a Pinkie Pie away from an episode of hoarders. My girls, well actually just one of my girls fell head over heels in love with the My Little Pony characters about a year ago. Keep in mind she did this without a trace of irony. She is not doing it to be hip; if she is hip, it is completely accidental.

Cult of the pony.

Her sister, facing an ever-decreasing amount of room space, due to the vast collection of pony gear, just surrendered and joined the cult of pony.

Could it be worse? Yes. When I enter their room instead of my gaze falling on a 6’ by 6’ poster of a smiling pink, anthropomorphic pony I could instead gaze upon a bare chested Justin Bieber, so really I don’t speak out against the ponies, ever.

In fact, some might say I enable her addiction. Buying her pony related items whenever I can. Am I attempting to postpone that moment when she changes from a tween into a full-blown teen. Yes.

Someday I know she will look at those happy pastel colored ponies in disgust, rip them down, and replace them with scowling musicians.

Does it appear to bother my kids that they are perhaps a little long in the tooth to like ponies? No, and really it shouldn’t because there are entire websites devoted to adults who like My Little Pony.

Men that like ponies are called bronies.

Apparently, even men like the ponies and I don’t mean the kind you bet on at the track. These men, referred to as bronies in the vernacular, I won’t lie, scare me. I know I should probably check them out on the internet, but I am torn. Do I really want to see a grown man wax poetic about Princess Luna?

I doubt the art curators at the world’s finest museums spend as much time curating their collection as my kid. My goodness I even found her trolling eBay for pony related items.

Part of me wants to tell her that her beloved collection is worthless, the other part of me wants to hold on to it in hopes that someday I can strike it rich on “Antiques Roadshow” with my pristine collection of mid-2000s plastic pony toys.

Who will be laughing if those little plastic ponies end up buying a Tahitian island? It is always a good idea to diversify your retirement accounts.

In the event they end up worthless, I plan on boxing up the ponies up and immediately driving them to my kid’s house.

One afternoon I laughing said “Wouldn’t it be fun if there was a pony convention” because really everything has a convention these days. Love to knit sweaters for snakes, don’t worry there is a convention for that.

Milwaukee has Ponyfest.

Two seconds of on-line research and jokes on me, there is a Ponyfest in Milwaukee later this year. As I take every opportunity to collect best mom in the world points-again looking forward to the teenage years. I foresee having a surly kid on my hands and I can play the “I took you to a convention of My Little Pony freaks” card. Will it do me any good? Probably not, but you never know.

So, now I have two ecstatic girls and one small boy, who is going to try to pull a Houdini at show, I just know it, eagerly awaiting November. Although, the boy secretly knows all the words to the pony theme song really, it’s a case of Stockholm syndrome. His sisters force him to watch the shows multiple times a day.

Surprise I declined to buy advanced tickets. I don’t want to end up holding three tickets to Ciderfest; really, that’s what it’s called, if the girls end up pony haters in three months.