Friday, July 13, 2007

In which he plays dead...

The other day Liam came into the room "shooting" his empty squirt gun with his very cute sound effects. He insinuated that he wanted me to join in his battle. I shaped my hand like a gun and did my own shooting sound effects. Liam immediately acted like I had wounded him and fell to the floor like a natural movie star would do. I figure Liam's 5 year old playmate, Jacob, might be to blame for this behavior. As cute and as funny as the acting was, I am not sure how I feel about Liam playing guns and actually pointing it at folks and shooting. It will be a few years before Ian can take Liam shooting for real and teach him the proper respect for a gun. In the meantime, I guess I will play along with the pretend shooting.

13 comments:

Cheryl said...

That is a hard line especially with boys. They inevitably want to shoot guns and if you don't give them play guns, they make them out of anything any everything. We just "try" to stress the point, "we don't shoot people" And when Tyson was 18 months, I told him that and being the quick child he was, asked me what do we shoot then. I didn't want to say bad guys, that would open up another topic, so the first thing I saw was the trees outside and bees flying around. So I said We shoot "bugs in trees" That worked for awhile, but its a daily reminder in our house with 3 boys trying to play good guy-bad guy. Good Luck. Your little Liam is so darling.

Heidi said...

I wouldn't worry about it, he's just playing and wouldn't understand why he shouldn't do that right now anyway. Just let him have his fun and enjoy how adorable he is! Love you!

Suzanne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Suzanne said...

I agree with busy bee. He's so little right now, I'm sure he doesn't really even know what it means. I'd just tell him to shoot things, not people and I'll bet it's not a big deal. How great that his Daddy will show him the right way when he's bigger. You have quite the little actor on your hands! :)

Klin said...

You and Ian are great parents. I love how you play with Liam and I am sure that if something comes up that needs to be addressed that you will do it the way that is right for your family.

Liam is so blessed to have your two for parents. And he so beautiful.

Katie said...

We shoot elk at our house. I try to enforce the "no shooting people" rule, and take guns away from little people who "forget". It works for us. It's been hard since Josh has started doing his sheriff's work and the boys know he takes a gun in case he "hassa shoot the bad guys---not a elk." So I just tell them that when they are Daddies they can shoot bad guys too if they want to be sheriffs.

David said...

What! You ain't givin' 'im a deuce deuce and pushin' 'im out to support the fam? He old unuf 2 sell dat coffee.

;) Just kidding. Boys like to play guns. My father took all toy guns away from me and I still played with my finger like a gun when he wasn't watching!

www.stepherz.com said...

I love it! I think that's too cute; he's growing into a boy! Austin was really into the swords/guns thing. He played dead and all that, though I don't remember when he started it exactly. That's one of the awesome things about you blogging it, you'll be able to keep track of those cute little things.

He's such a funny little dude!

D said...

So cute. Such a boy landmark. So my two cents about it is that Liam doesn't know he is playing dead- he just thinks it is funny to fall on the floor in reaction to the pointing. And that someone else might fall on the floor in reaction to his pointing. Later on he'll get that he's playing dead- but right now he is just mimicking and laughing at the motions. But you already knew this- which is why you are enjoying it for now. How wonderful that Ian will take him shooting and teach him that respect later. That will be good bonding time for them and great mom time for you. :)

Angel Baby said...

Pretend play already? Wow! How impressive!

I really liked this article on gun play:

http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/discipline/bang-bang.html

(Though keep in mind I'm a big fan of Mothering Magazine AND I live on the west coast!! LOL!)

Terri@SteelMagnolia said...

When I was a kid (back in the late 60's & 70's) .. both of my little brothers use to play like that ... they had little toy guns ... and played cowboy and indians...

they turned out just fine...

but times were different back then...i think

my brother keith is a captain out at the test site now... (Danny has been w/ our Lord since he was 11 so he's good)

Times are so different now...
I would be more worried about video games....

Anonymous said...

I think that people get caught up to much in, is this going to teach my son to shoot people? I think it is just boys being boys. Now if he is never taught guns safety when he is older. Then that is irresponsible parenting, especially if they have guns in the house. I think that he will be just fine. As far as video games go, how can one blame a childs actions on video games. That's what people say when they don't want to say they are bad parents. I haved played video games all my life and have never shot any one.

Just my two cents.

Caitlin said...

Interesting, we haven't dealt with this yet. We are a "gun family" though.