Kids & toy guns, or, Confessions of a Lame Playdate Mom

Until recently, I was a playdate-phobe. I didn't mind sending my kids off to playdates, but I never looked forward to the expected reciprocation. I have always admired and wanted to be like those moms who have kids in and out of the house all afternoon, stopping only to grab a fun yet healthy snack, entertaining themselves without needing an adult, but in actuality, I crave quiet and order. The thought of kids in and out of the house, and the aftermath of that, made me cringe. I wished I could just relax more, but honestly, I tend more toward the type-A, uptight mom.

In addition, our house and yard don't really lend themselves to lots of kids. We don't have a playroom, and our yard is not large. Before the current next door neighbors moved in, their back yard was kind of an extra back yard for us and was great for whiffleball, frisbee, hide & seek and wrestling matches. When those neighbors moved, the new neighbors put a fence up for their dog, so now we just have enough space to walk down to our back yard. No more extra back yard.

In the back yard we do have, there are two big trees, a makeshift deck that covers a storm drain, a large compost pile, and three raised garden beds. The sandbox can be somewhat entertaining - currently there is a Civil War battlefield set up there - but the boys seem to have moved beyond the 'playing in the sand' phase.

Especially during hot weather, playdates tend to be inside affairs. One problem I encountered with that is the lack of "group play" type toys we have. Michael's ideal entertainment is building Bionicles on his own and listening to an audio book; Will is similar, except that he listens to music, plays his instruments, looks at books, or else begs to watch TV. If we have a kid over who is not into Legos or music, we have a problem. And I regard TV as a playdate last resort.

When he was in kindergarten, Michael had a playdate during which I found them jumping on the futon in the spare bedroom. I discovered after the playdate that the futon frame was broken. Last year, after another playdate with the son of a friend of mine, I found out the friend had destroyed a bulletin board I had painstakingly made for Michael - I had taken marbles, fake coins, small cars, lego pieces, and plastic dinosaurs and hot-glued them around the edge of the bulletin board. The playdate friend had pulled almost all of them off. I glued them back. And I swear, the next time that friend came over, he did it again. His sister was with him that time and she pulled on and broke a wooden mobile hanging from the ceiling fan chain. Is it any wonder that I hate playdates? Despite those bad experiences, I still worried that my kids were kind of isolated when all their friends were swapping off and hanging out at each other's houses after school and on the weekends, but nobody was hanging out with us.

So, my playdate phobia has been challenged this year, because Michael has become best buds with G., who was in his class last year and is again this year. We had a couple of playdates with G. last year, both here and at his house, and Michael spent the night over at G.'s once. G.'s mom, Gwen, is very cool and someone who I wanted to know better. What better way than having our kids play together? It turns out they are very compatible and play together very well, and Gwen and I have gotten to be good friends.

Then Will got invited on a playdate earlier this week by one of his friends from Pre-K, S., who is in another kindy class but at the same school. When I picked Will up from the playdate, I found him and S. down in the basement, each playing Cartoon Network games on separate computers, after having spent an hour playing on the elaborate play structure in the back yard, and he informed me that S.'s mom had taken them to Dairy Queen for Blizzards after school.

We left S.'s house (Will protesting loudly) and went to G.'s house to get Michael, where I found them playing in the treehouse in G.'s backyard, which Gwen hates but is a kid's dream. They moved inside and began a game of Nerf dart tag. G. also has a PlayStation, which I've heard about at length.

I was beginning to feel like the uncoolest mom ever. No video games, no computer games, no fort, no play structures. Not even any Nerf dart guns. What kid would want to come to my house?

It's a long way down when falling off a soapbox, isn't it? I hate toy guns. I hate gun violence in any form. Lee and I watch no TV, so my kids only see kid shows and kid movies. But a while back I began to see I was fighting a losing battle, trying to keep guns out of their lives. When there were no toy guns in the house, they fashioned guns from Legos, K'Nex, sticks, or their fingers. Will especially was pointing finger guns and making gun noises from very early on.

But they already had an assortment of light sabers, which I hate because someone's knuckles inevitably get smacked whenever they play with them. About a year ago, Lee took them to Kennesaw mountain, which is a National Historic Site because it is a Civil War battlefield, and he bought them wooden muskets (which have since been turned into sawed-off muskets, by request). Then Aunt Brenda bought them each a Star Wars blaster, which I refused to let them use in the house. They were noisy, obnoxious, threatening-looking and they loved them.

It was inevitable. Video games are not going to happen, and I can't do anything about the fort, because there's nowhere to put one, but, despite my aversion to toy guns, today I went to Toys "r" Us (which Will calls "Toys For Us") and bought three Nerf dart guns and an extra set of darts. One for each boy and one for Daddy or the playdate.

It doesn't compare to a gaming console, but maybe, coupled with a trip for ice cream after school, it'll have some playdate appeal. If I fake it 'til I make it, maybe one day I'll actually feel like one of the cool moms with kids swarming all over the house and yard.