The new generation of TF fans.

[GoktimusPrime]

Great thread!! I was thinking about starting one like this and calling it "OzFormers: Generation 2"

My daughter was "baptised" into Transformers from the moment that she was born. I had Softimus Prime in the delivery room when she was born; so the first things she saw (albeit not very clearly) when she was born would have been the midwife, her mother, her father and a plush Optimus Prime. Even before she was born I was already reading Transformers books and comics to her in utero, and she would have been listening to Transformers music because... well, that's the only music I listen to :P As a newborn in the hospital I read a variety of Transformers story books to her and I also sang Transformer theme songs to her as lullabyes. Her favourite is the opening theme for Fight! Super Robot Life Forms Transformers and whenever that song comes on she tries to sing along with it!

I've also given her a TF name; Yukikaze (name of a G1 Autobot and Maximal starship), which also coincides with her real name. She's been exposed to my PlaySkool and Tonka Transformers since she was a newborn, and she's worked out how to transform a few of them on her own (although sometimes she needs reminders/guidance). She also has a few items of Transformers clothes (find TF clothes in baby/infant sizes is HARD!) and she calls every Transformer "Bumblebee", or as she says it, "Bah-boo-dee!" (sometimes she says "Bam-boo-bee"). She has recently been able to discern Optimus Prime from all other Bumblebees, or as she calls him, "Apple Pie" :P

One time I was standing on a footpath watching my wife buy some food, and my daughter suddenly started calling out "Bum boo dee! Bum boo dee!" with urgency, I turned around to see her pointing at the street and yelling "Bum boo dee!" and there was a yellow Suzuki Swift with black racing stripes (like an Alternity X Animated hybrid Bumblebee!)

Ready? Photos and videos!

Just minutes after being born...


Reading a Transformers story book to her...


After coming home for the first time, so she was only a few days old...


Riding around in Optimus Pram


Wearing a Transformers turtle-neck and playing with PCC Huffer


Playing around with Lugnut when we went overseas last year


She loves Apple Pie

Counting to six


Trying to say "Bumblebee"
Watching G1 eps

[crankcase76]

i have two boys a 6yr old and a 3yr old that were introduced to TF's when they were babies that is where i got to collect the animated for my eldest and RtS for my youngest and found that there interest in them is awesome,that they can play with their favorite transformer as they watch the cartoons on TV. then they want to pull down dad's collection and play with them,i think that this will be as Verno put it ,left in "great hands" for generations of kids that will grow up playing and watching TF's.

[GoktimusPrime]

i think that this will be as Verno put it ,left in "great hands" for generations of kids that will grow up playing and watching TF's.

And reading. I actually have a Transformers Animated book that's meant for infants - you know where every page is hard. Thats the only TF book Ill let her read on her own - other TF books I read to her but only if I'm there...she doesn't have the patience to listen to me read an entire comic issue to her yet, but she'll get there.

Getting kids to develop a love for reading for pleasure - and studies show that it can be more challenging to get boys to get into this - is obviously very important... so if Transformers can be a gateway to developing a child's love for reading, then all the better.

[Cat]

I'm reposting this from my FB, but this happened to me a few months ago.

I still remember it like it was yesterday though. It was just an awesome moment.

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This honestly made my day, too. It was a really neat moment.

I was sitting in my car in the carpark.

I hear this kid start SCREAMING ''Daddy, Daddy, LOOK!! IT'S A TRANSFORMER!!''

He was pointing at my car, which has an Autobot symbol on the back.

He then walked past in awe, waving at my car.

Not at me, he was waving at my CAR.

Today, that kid, in his mind, got to meet a real Transformer.

Doesn't get much cooler than that, does it?

I guess those are the moments we're still trying to recapture.
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[jena]

Oh I wish that would happen to me! I have a chrome autobot badge on my car and only my friends have ever seemed to notice it.

[GoktimusPrime]

yeah, that happens to me a lot, kids point either at my car and/or me because I always wear TF apparel It's funny when I travel overseas and I hear kids pointing at me and saying Transformers in different languages Right now I'm using a computer at my Osaka hotel's lobby and I'm wearing 3 different kinds of TF apparel and my daughter is sitting on my lap munching on a piece of bread wearing a Bumblebee shirt... yesterday we went to Osaka Castle and there was this guy leading a tour group and holding up a Japanese fan presumably with the tour group name on it... so I held up RtS Prowl above my head as we walked past them... that got a few looks too.

[crankcase76]

same for me with the decepticon apparel on my car, my boy's love it they always ask where's our naughty car is. And i do apologize Gok i forgot about the reading part , you are correct. it is a great tool for the kids to use for learning. even thou the missus went Thomas the tank MAD. but the same concept for them that's how my eldest learn t how to count and eventually read.