Saturday, May 15, 2010

Boys and Guns

Elliott is a boy. And I've been warned that the time will come when Elliott will start to play with toy guns, even if we don't buy them, that he will make guns out of sticks, legos, or other toys.

I thought I was prepared for this, but I also thought our first encounter with toys guns would come a lot later.

Today we were at Alfy's pizza and Elliott discovered their arcade room. For the longest time he was enthralled with the driving game. But then he noticed an older boy playing a shooting game with a toy gun. Elliott was captivated. He watched this boy carefully, and sure enough, as soon as the boy was done, Elliott grabbed one of the toy guns.

I didn't have the words in my brain to react to this. Several possible responses went through my mind... "Elliott, we don't play with guns. Guns are dangerous." or "Elliott you can play with toy guns when you are older." or " Yes, you can shoot at the game, but not at people." and on and on. Truthfully, I just didn't know what to say. We don't really know how we feel about the whole toy gun thing and how we're going to parent that...after all, he already attacks Jay with a lightsaber and what is the difference?

So you can imagine my relief when Elliott turned to me in pure joy and announced he was at the gas station and stuck the gun into the wall to fill up his ''truck."

Guns, we'll deal with you later!

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