Rainy Day Shenanigans - Seamus Style

Warning: The contents of this blog post might be disturbing to some. I would suggest an "over 10" audience for this post.

Its President's Day and its raining outside. We have a full house: Matt is home and the kids are here too. Normally, these conditions are ripe for some big time problems, but so far things have been running pretty smoothly. About an hour ago, Matt went to Lowes to get some lightbulbs and took Finn with him. I was left home doing dishes and Seamus was doing "Seamus stuff." Its amazing to me how most of the time that kid can keep himself busy. He gets that from his Dadoo. Shea's getting to the age where he will totally give up attitude when bored, but I truly believe his natural state is easily occupied.

I digress.

I was doing dishes when I realized Seamus was getting the stools from the counter and dragging them down the hall. This didnt really alarm me for some reason so I kept doing the dishes. Then I heard this weird noise... like a sweeping sound. I stopped the dishes and looked down the hall. Seamus was standing precariously on a stool with the broom in his hand. He was trying to get something off the wall. I asked him what he was doing but before I finished my question I knew exactly what had been going on. note: This is where you might want to take Eli or any young kids out of the room.

Seamus has recently discovered that he can put tacks into the ends of his nerf bullets. See example below:



When he uses these reconditioned nerf bullets with his nerf gun, the result can be dangerous. His innocent nerf toys are no longer innocent and honestly, this upsets me. You have no idea how long it took me to finally give in and allow a toy gun in my house. It was years. I was adamantly against any kind of toy gun being in my house. I finally acquiesced when Seamus was maybe 6 years old, but I only allowed nerf guns. They are bright colors: orange, green, purple. Back then there were only like 3 models and they seemed good natured. Now I dont know what to think! I first discovered Seamus' new habit of converting his nerf bullets at a friends house. Can you imagine my horror? We were at Tara's house and I went up to check on the kids and there is Seamus showing Drew his new tack darts. Not a nice mama moment for me.

Anyway, back to the dreary rainy day. With Finn gone and me occupied with dishes, Seamus decided to get out his tack darts and shoot them at the wall. See picture below:



Seeing it done in action kind of freaked me out. Those nerf bullets go fast. If someone accidentally got shot by one of those nerf tacks, it would really hurt. If someone got shot in the wrong place with one of those nerf tacks, we might be going to the ER. We talked for a moment about the danger involved with his new tack bullets and I told him I didnt want him doing it anymore. He was upset. He thought his invention was really cool and swore he would never shoot them at a person. He was just doing it at the wall. I told him it didnt matter. I didnt like it and I really didnt apreciate him taking target practice at my wall either. He promised he wouldnt do it again. Then the pleading began: "Puuuullleeeeeeze Mama. Can I do it with supervision only. Please." I asked him to let me think about it.

About 5 minutes later Shea came to me with a new, handmade target. "See. Im not going to shoot your walls again." Well what could I say, you guys? You know Im bad at this kind of stuff. I told him it would be ok as long as we set down some rules. 1.) Supervision is always necessary. He can never do it alone. Nor can he do it with any little kids around - including his brother. 2.) He can not take it to someone else's home. Its just for here. And 3.) If I ever see him using it to hurt anyone the nerf gun and all the nerf bullets will be taken away forever.