Somewhere along the line, Frankie has developed a weird fascination with guns. I honestly don’t know where she gets it from. It’s not like Matt & I have ever owned a gun, or plan on ever owning a gun. In fact, we rarely talk about guns. There’s a gun-shaped void in our lives. The only tine the subject comes up is when Frankie is begging me to buy her some sort of toy gun so she can practice shooting things.
Most likely, her love of guns was formed in direct opposition to my dislike of guns, as a way to drive me crazy. I can get behind target practice—That seems kind of fun. But when kids run around and pretend to shoot each other, complete with faking dramatic death scenes on the floor… Sorry, but I think that’s weird and morbid. Not my cup of tea. But that’s probably exactly why Frankie likes the idea of guns. The thought process is pretty straightforward: mom doesn’t like guns, so now I MUST LOVE GUNS.
Anyhow, Frankie has been on me for a few weeks to buy her a Nerf gun to play with. I really didn’t want to. Frankie’s an only child, and there’s no one around the house to shoot at but me. Call me selfish, but I don’t want to live my life in fear of casually entering a room only to be shot point blank in the face by a Nerf dart.
Frankie begged and begged. She promised me that she was responsible enough to play with it, and she would be super careful with it. Eventually I came to the realization that forbidding toy guns in the house was probably making them seem even more exotic and cool than ever. So, I caved. We went to the store, and I bought her one of those Nerf guns with the little foam suction cup darts in it.
The first thing I did when we got it home was lay down the rules:
1) No shooting at people (see my earlier comment re: my face)
2) No shooting in the house (mommy loves fragile collectables)
3) NEVER point the gun at your own face (you’ll shoot your eye out, duh)
I showed her how to load it and shoot it, and showed her how to hold the gun away from herself so it never had to be pointed toward her face. Frankie just rolled her eyes and sighed, “I know, mom. Geez! I’m not a baby!” I repeated the importance of never looking down the barrel, but she said “Mom, you’d have to be sooooo dumb to shoot your own face.” She snatched the gun away from me, and shooed me away, eager to start her target practice.
I went inside and watched her shoot two or three darts at the sliding glass door. She was happy as a clam. Not two minutes after I left her with the gun, though, she proceeded to check whether or not the chamber was correctly loaded by pointing the gun directly at her face, staring down the barrel….AND SHOOTING HERSELF IN THE EYE.
To be honest, it all happened so fast that I didn’t see a thing. I turned my head, distracted by dishes or some other sort of household chore, and the next thing I knew she was running past me, covering the right side of her face hysterically yelling in a high-pitched voice, “NOTHING’S WRONG. NOTHING’S WRONG. DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!!”
She came out of the bathroom five minutes later, strolled past me real casual-like, and totally tried to pass it off like nothing had happened. She was absolutely never going to tell me what had happened, even though her puffy red right eye was a dead giveaway.
“Did you shoot yourself in the eye?”
“No.”
“Uh huh. Frankie, did you shoot yourself in the eye?”
“No way, mom!”
“Did. You. Shoot. Yourself. In. The. Eye? Don’t lie.”
(small voice) “Ok….maybe a little.”
Really, it was hard not to laugh. She was fine, of course, and I got the satisfaction of being proven right in record time. I couldn’t believe that it took her less than five minutes of having a toy gun to do the exact thing to herself that I was most worried about.
Still, I don’t think we’ll be graduating to BB guns anytime soon.
