Weapons

Several years ago my grandma told me that there was no stopping boys from playing guns.   I figured that might eventually be true with my boys, but  I was honestly hoping to avoid much of the gun phase.  My monkeys haven’t really been in to weapons.  Until…

…Owen saw Star Wars, and then saw this Star Wars gun at a garage sale for 50 cents.   He begged me to get it, and I agreed, figuring that the gun would most likely end up being an accessory to one of the costumes that Owen had.  Neither Owen nor I knew  gun shot foam darts.

 

When we got home, I pulled the orange lever on the back of the gun, then Owen pulled the trigger.  To our surprise, a foam dart flew right out!

The monkeys played with the gun for hours that day.  The foam dart had a little suction cup at the end, and would stick to certain things when shot.  The boys figured out which things it would stick to and deemed those things the “bad guys”  running, and shooting at them throughout the day.  Owen even let Jack have a few turns with his precious new gun!

The next day I saw a similar gun, but a much smaller version,  in the clearance section at Target, and bought it for Jack.  Again, the boys were entertained for quite some time, playing that they were on a team fighting off the “bad guys.” 

Unfortunately, being on the same team did not last.

Jack’s gun rights soon were revoked (until age 4) when he shot Owen barely to the left of his eye at point blank range.  This was approximately 14 seconds after having the gun returned to him after a 3-day confiscation for shooting Owen in the arm at point blank range…

Jack later pretended that several different toys were guns.  I wasn’t too worried about that, as my biggest issue with the guns was Jack needing to have a little more time to develop self control so he can control when and where he shoots the bullets.

I assumed that the obsession with guns would fade when the guns became less interesting with no bullets.  But I was sure mistaken!  Anything and everything can make a gun.  Plastic bananas, tinker toys, K’nex, Legos, and paper, all seem to end up as guns.  I just decided not to make a big deal out of these other guns.

I had hoped to pass over the gun-phase, or at least pass it quickly.  Today,  I realized that that was probably not going to be the case.  We are already too far in – so far, in fact, that I don’t even realize it myself. 

Today I took the boys to get ice cream at Baskin Robin with Lisa, Sarah, and Katie.  I wanted Jack to leave his toys in the car while we went in the store and used my typical ‘Love and Logic- style’  positive-statement.

Lisa heard me, and busted up laughing – doubling over in the parking lot.  It took me a second to figure out why she was laughing at me. 

I had said to Jack, “All kids who are not carrying weapons will get ice cream in the store.”