Parenting With Love, Logic, and Projectiles

This is my prepubescent little sour puss, Zoe Bug. She has a lot of buttons and she lives with three button pushers. Poor thing.

Yesterday we sent her and Stinkerbell upstairs to play because they were being too noisy. They like to play this bizarre game called "Warriors," which is based on the very disturbing feral cat series by Erin Hunter. Talk about Cuh-reeeeepy. Anyway, they do a lot of growling, hissing, and exclaiming that this or that is their pile of fresh kill and stay away from it blah, blah, blah, . . . and then they mated, blah, blah, blah.

"What?! They WHAT?" I interject.

"Mo-OM!" they cry in unison.

"What does that mean? They mated? Where did you learn about mating?" I question.

"Mom. It means that they have kits. Geez." Zoe Bug replied with much vigorous eye rolling and a look of impatient disgust.

Parents are so dumb.

This supposed creative, imaginative play is not a pleasant scenario for any parent, and it's got me thinking that I need to sit down and write a letter to this Erin Hunter character who writes about feral animals that mate and overpopulate the world with their noisy growling, hissing, and fresh-kill-pile-making.

As I was saying, we evicted the girls from the basement and that ticked Zoe Bug off big time. She was smokin' hot mad. So mad that she stomped downstairs to get a piece of paper and a pencil so she could write me a letter and give me a piece of her mind.

The pen is mightier than the sword and all that.

After about five minutes she stomped back downstairs to tell us "Don't come in my room without reading the sign on my door first. Don't come in my room! Read the sign."

I'm just a dumb parent, but I think that even I can infer that she wants me to read the sign on her door.

I turned to Peanut Head, he turned to me, and we both nodded in agreement. We were going to walk into the ambush that was awaiting us and very possibly get ourselves killed. Cool.

We armed ourselves with Nerf Guns and ammo and otherwise prepared ourselves mentally to read THE SIGN.

Ooh-wee. This is going to be good, I thought as I made my way upstairs.

We got to Zoe Bug's bedroom door and we bent down to read the sign.

Just in case it's not clear enough for you to read, I'll interpret.

Strikes Sheet. If you get all six strikes no coming in my room or opening my door.

Below that is the Strikes Table which reveals that Mom and Dad have both had all six strikes checked off, and Stinkerbell has only two strikes checked off. Then below that it says,

I can take away strikes.

Typical Zoe Bug, waving the proverbial white flag, as if to say "I can forgive you if you make it worth my while. I deal in chocolate."

She's a lot like her Mama. She doesn't like people to be mad at her and she is quick to make nice. Aaaand then continue on in a passive aggressive manner. I like to get things resolved so I can sleep, but I never forget that you will eventually have to sleep too.

Just something to think about.

"Open up this door so I can shoot you!" I ordered the enemy behind the door.

The door did not open, so a struggle ensued. It was quickly resolved on account of she weighs just 70 pounds and I weigh . . . much, much more.

I was so happy to be in the coveted room from which I had been banished by my multitude of strikes, that I let all my bullets fly in one go. I tend to be impulsive and not plan ahead for the Armageddon like that.

Peanut Head, on the other hand, is much more level-headed and plans out the discharging of his munitions. It's grunt thing, I think.

Hmmm. I haven't taken Peanut Head's gun safety course like I know this cute little thing did, but even I know that you should never aim a gun at a person that you don't intend to shoot.

I guess in actuality, she intended to shoot.

And she did.

"That's it! You have a strike!" I exclaimed, because I simply cannot help myself.

Zoe Bug was not amused. She got mad and her lips started quivering.

It sorted reminded me of her first temper tantrum when she was two. I was a fairly new scrapbooker at the time, and I was all about documenting all the firsts in her life. I even gave her some tantrum tips. 

"Sweetie, kick your legs while you scream and it will be a tantrum you can be proud of."

Hey, it worked.

Somewhere along the way Zoe Bug started having fun and it became a game.

Here she is preparing to ambush Peanut Head.

"Don't rat me out, Mom. You villainous traitor." 

Okay, she didn't say that, but she should have. She would have been dead on.

Stinkerbell got in on the action too, because she likes a good fight.

It lasted a good long time, and everyone got all sweaty and stinky and then the love came back into our day.

And this is why I believe every family member should have a Nerf gun with plenty of ammo.

This post is not endorsed by any Parenting magazines or professionals in the know. They are strictly my views. No wedgies were given in the photographing of this event, and no little persons were harmed, although Gunny Bunny did nearly choke on a Nerf disk. It's coming out of his allowance, mark my words.