obsessions

I remember eating dinner at Costco several years ago. I think Aidan and Luke were about 4 and 2 at the time which would have put Ebo in the stroller as an infant. The close quarters of the Costco cafeteria provide ample opportunity for mingling with strangers. This particular occurrence of such mingling has somehow stayed with me. I don't recall the details of how it started, but a fortysomething mom of one rather obstinate 3 or 4 year old struck up a conversation with us about the trials dining in public with kids. Part way through our interaction, she asked us what we did about "G-U-N-Ses". Yes, she spelled it so as not to rile her already-riled dinner date, also, I presume, out of misplaced assumptions as to what our opinions on the matter would be. Amy replied, loud enough for all to hear, "What...? You mean guns?" After a brief shudder, she nodded.

I honestly don't remember where the conversation went after that, but I think I probably said that I don't think you can keep toy guns out of the hands of young boys. Even if you have no TV, videos, books, etc, there is this inherent knowledge that emerges in boys at an early age that there just has to be some means of propelling a projectile of some kind with speeds great enough to inflict serious harm on another person. It's instinctive. Even in a gun-free household, at some point a young boy with find an errant spaghetti noodle on the floor and for no particular reason, point it at his little sister and go "pew, pew". You can't stop it. You can only hope to contain it.

That story is only slightly related to this post, but whatever.

So about 3 years ago, I ordered some padded swords for the kids to lovingly beat on each other with from BUDK. Not sure how I came across that company, but they had good prices on a variety of knives, BB guns, and medieval weaponry. As some of you may have experienced, often when you order from a catalogue or website, you get spammed like crazy. We've probably gotten at least one BUDK catalogue a month for the last few years. Usually they quickly find their way to trash, but occasionally they are intercepted.

This catalogue happened to come at a time when birthday money was burning holes in a few pockets around these parts. Luke took a strong fancy too it and spent about 75% of his free time looking through it. The other 25% of that time was spent telling us what he was going to get, or how he and Aidan were going to pool their money to get something big, or how he had changed his mind about what he was going to get, or how Daddy should buy this really cool thing, or... you get the picture. It was nonstop, incessant. Some acquaintances of ours have labeled Luke the quiet one of our family. We laugh about that. He just sometimes likes to save it up for home.

[Yes, those are stink bombs on the left page there. Yes, they were proposed as a nonviolent acquisition by the boys. No, that proposal was not endorsed. No, I have no idea how it works or what is inside it or anything like that]



Some of Luke's favorites:




No, it's not a flask. It's actually a "permanent match". It's a steel container filled with toxic lighter fluid that apparently has some apparatus that you can pull out and strike like a match. Of course. What 6 year old doesn't need an infinite supply of matches?.

His mean parents put the kibosh on that one pretty quick. We explained that Papa had drank lighter fluid when he was boy and was pronounced dead at the hospital prior to being revived. He didn't press the issue on this one. Also, it's important to keep in mind that in our house, you have to 8 before you can have a pocket knife. I know that rule is quite arbitrary, but Aidan would ask us for a knife every day a few years back so we kinda came up with that rule on the spot. That is how case law is established in our family. Everyone else just has to deal with it.


His next option was this:



I guess it's not a pocket knife. We jokingly/sarcastically told him that we could also get Ebo some metal armor so they could have real battles. Apparently our jest was a bit too subtle as we found out a couple hours later that he really thought that was going to be it. Serious redirection ensued.




We were finally able to persuade him that the cheap airsoft guns offered the most value for his dollar. Also, it was understood that they would primarily be used as props because "we don't want to waste all the bullets."

Of course, it wasn't just Luke who felt the need to bolster our household defenses.

It's times like these that make me so glad that we have a girl. She can lend beauty and grace to all this testosterone. She brings sensitivity and compassion to the family, along with a healthy dose of cuteness. She is a beacon of femininity in the swirling waters of testosterone upon which our household floats.











[sigh.......]