Bad Guys

What is this love for guns and knives and bad guys and gore I see emerging in Jacob? I have done my best to shield him from the worst elements of violence and have fostered love and flowers by showing him things like Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but still he really loves to fight. Even our pink and purple knives from our play kitchen set have become weapons. Color, apparently, doesn't bother our genius super hero when he is fighting bad guys and saving lives.

All Jacob wants to do these days is play bad guys. This game consists of him running and me chasing, but not under any circumstances actually catching him because then he would cry. He hates to get caught. We are working on being a good loser. A hard concept to teach because who wants to lose?  But I digress. 

Lately I've been putting Jacob off when he wants to play. I just don't want to play chase every day. Or every other day even. Is that bad? I just want to clean up my house, which takes me all day every day and I never make a dent in anything. And I just want to catch up on laundry, which only happens for approximately 22  minutes once every seven days. Or I want to use my sewing machine, or I want to paint something, or I want to look at my computer. See a trend here? 

So, the other day I decided I would give in and play bad guys. I had a bright orange gun and he had a wooden Melissa and Doug knife that goes with a set of velcro food. At least it wasn't pink. I hid behind bushes and jumped out and scared him and then we ran. Him in front, me in hot pursuit. When he stopped running, since I was already on his heels, then a fight would commence which consisted of "sword fighting" with his little knife and my gun. He has no understanding that the gun always wins. Which is fine with me, remember, I tried to teach him love and flowers. Jacob can actually inflict some pain I discovered when he whacked my knuckles with his silly knife. After a brief battle, which usually ended with him on the ground and me holding his head down (I can't help it, I'm competitive), I'd let him off the ground and we'd begin the game all over again. 

Even though I didn't want to play, even though I had a million other things to do, the best accomplishment of the day were the shrieks of laughter I earned in response to pretending to hide and being scared when the villain caught me. Or maybe he was the good guy. Anyway, it was the pure joy of my boy as we ran and laughed together. 

Only a few minutes out of my day were enough to fill his little heart with the way he defines love- time.