Bow&Arrow

Round four of our weapons series…

Two Christmases ago, Jacob and Nathaniel both got bows and arrows for Christmas from Santa.  The math is troubling me at this moment, but it does in fact appear that Santa bought Nate his first weapon at the age of almost two, which made Jake almost four.  That Santa… he must shop at the same baby boutique as Uncle Geoff.

Now the bowandarrow campaign must have started before Nate was even born because there were clearly months, if not years, of parental stalling.  Recently Jakey told me, “‘We’ll see’ always means ‘no’!” I’m sure Jack Johnson was thinking the same thing when he wrote, “It seems to me that maybe… pretty much always means no.”  And yes, I purposefully made it one word, as Jake used to think the bow was called a bowandarrow.  Nate still thinks that.

After no less than 8 hours of internet research over multiple evenings and train rides, and being drawn to customer reviews that said things like, “First off, the makers of this archery set said to themselves, ‘we just don’t want anyone to get hurt,'” Santa finally chose some homemade ones on Etsy.

Santa’s criteria included a low likelihood that anyone could shoot an eye out (theirs, a siblings’, or their vision-loving Santas’), that the arrows couldn’t realistically travel long distances (even with significant practice), and that the items wouldn’t break within two-seconds, leaving the child in a puddle of tears (though better than blood) and Santa writing angry reviews on Amazon Christmas morning.  The fact they were homemade just further enhanced the reputation of Santa’s elves.

The Etsy choice was the hands-down winner.  Soft, made from easy to replace and repair Home Depot supplies, cute variety of colors.  A huge success Christmas morning.  Jakey almost mastered his after a few days shooting at the back glass door in our Yosemite cabin.  At the time, Nate’s bow was as big as he was, but over the last two years he’s grown into it.

And now it’s the summer of 2014 and our landscape designer comes over for a consultation and brings her eight-year-old son and his latest reward: a Nerf crossbow.  And it easily shoots the length of three front yards and makes this ear-piercing whistling sound so you have fair warning right before it torpedoes you in the back of the head.  I clearly remember reading reviews on this particular weapon as it got a lot of stars for flying the distance of an entire football field.  No thanks.

Jacob and this other little boy are having a great time and fortunately Nate’s eyesight is protected by the wonders of nap time.

So the grown-ups are talking and we get on the subject of bows and arrows.  I say something to the effect of, “Ah yes.  I did a lot of research on safe archery sets for kids and found some really good ones on Etsy.  Jake and Nate both have one.”

And Jake pipes-up from across the grass, “Mom, Santa brought us these for Christmas!”

“Uh, oh yeah.  You’re right.  Santa did bring those didn’t he…  you know, I think sometimes Santa shops on Etsy, too.  You know, like how he reads my blog?  Same thing, right?”

Their attention seems to drift and I feel the spotlight slowly pan away from me.

Smooth one Mom.  Smooth.

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