Growing up in the 80′s, in Arkansas no less, it was not unusual for me to spend my afternoons and weekends involved in epic cap gun wars with other kids in my neighborhood. When Nolan arrived, I naturally assumed that one day I would watch him play out the same cowboys & indians, cops & robbers, and army guys vs. the world battles that I did as a kid. It should come as no surprise that Melanie, a therapist, does not share my lackadaisical attitude toward this type of play. I’ve gone along with this since Nolan was born, and until recently it worked out just fine.
However, Nolan has reached that age and has suddenly shown an interest in all of those normal boy things that happen to require a toy gun. Since Nolan lacked the proper equipment, he made do with whatever he had around. Tinkertoys, sticks, curiously shaped chips – somehow these things were just good enough to “shoot at bad guys.” When he couldn’t find a stand-in for a toy gun, he’d simply use his hands. Melanie held off as long as she could, but it’s been clear for a long time that this wasn’t a fight we could win. To his credit, Nolan did try his best to comply with the “no toy gun” rule. He even confessed any time he thought he might have broken this rule by building a toy gun out of Legos or Tinkertoys.
Ironically, the breaking point came when Melanie discovered a box of play therapy toys while we were packing. It took Nolan about 3.5 seconds to notice the two toy guns among the play therapy toys. At that moment, Melanie knew it was pointless to try to keep him from doing what most kids his age do. So at the age of 4, Nolan finally got to play with toy guns without being worried about getting into trouble. Nolan spent about 30 minutes playing with the Dollar Store toy guns from the play therapy kit before both of them were completely wrecked.
Because the dam had broken, we knew it was time to give in and get the boy a decent little cowboy rifle/pistol set. Seems like a simple enough request, right? Surely any toy store will have what we need. Turns out, not so much. The best Target and Toys R’ Us had to offer were aisles filled with Nerf dart guns from $10-$50. Fortunately, I remembered that Wal-Mart still had an aisle in their toy section filled with products not made by Nerf. Nolan’s Mimi was kind enough to brave a visit to Wal-Mart to pick up Nolan’s first cowboy gear. He’s now the proud (and I mean proud) owner of a plastic rifle/pistol set with the finest pleather belt and holster money can buy.
In his own little homage to Ralphie from A Christmas Story*, Nolan was out the door with the rifle before we finished opening the entire package. And despite the fact that our backyard is a swamp due to the biblical amount of rain we’ve had lately, he decided to head out minus his shoes. So in the picture above you see Nolan, in a perfect Ralphie pose, in the full throes of manic, cap gun bliss.
Once we got him calmed down and back inside the house, he disappeared for a little bit before bath time. While he was taking his bath, I went into his room and found this:
I’m sure tonight he’ll be lying in bed dreaming of fighting off Black Bart* with his cold-black-plastic beauty.
*P.S. – A lot of this won’t make sense if you haven’t seen A Christmas Story. And if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and by a copy before the holidays. Thank me later.