never give a 4yo weapons

Monkey Man is obsessed with ninja turtles and superheroes. He wants to be batman or superman or spideman most of the day, and in between, in those rare down times, he'd happily be a ninja turtle. Every fcuking thing is a weapon, and I mean EVERYTHING! eg. tea towels, bags, jackets, hats, scarves, yoghurt tubs - the list goes on..... Bottom line is, the child is never to have actual weapons as I'm sure there would be an eye out or a limb broken within minutes. If anyone asked me what to get him for his birthday recently I indicated turtles etc but please no weapons. He was desperately hoping for Leo swords but sadly (thankfully) was let down. Sucks to be 4 with an opinionated mother.

He did however get a little golf set and well, you can see where this is going right?

Within minutes the clubs were disassembled, the heads taken off, and he was running around being 'Leowarno' the blue turtle with two 'swords'. There were lots of sound effects being played out as he ran, jumped, dived and crashed into everything he could. The girls were asleep so it didn't matter really, I mean smacking yourself with a plastic golf club apparently doesn't hurt when you're a ninja turtle.

Shame though that it did hurt the girls when mere minutes after they woke from their naps they were being attacked by a ninja turtle. The neighbours were no doubt thrilled by the screams coming from our backyard. Just for something different. I gave half a dozen warnings about using toys as weapons, I threatened to put them in the bin - nothing worked and then Missy Moo got a golf club square in the eye and I snapped. The clubs were picked up and thrown in the big bin while Leowarno screamed his head off and Missy Moo cried about her head hurting. I shouted the odds about weapons and how we shouldn't hurt each other and the moment was over almost as quickly as it started.  Sorry neighbours.

Later that day as I put rubbish out I felt masses of guilt seeing the golf set in the bin. It was a present after all, I mean how ungrateful was I being? They hadn't played with it that much and maybe it should be a supervision only toy? Maybe it was my fault that it all ended in tears? I took it out of the bin and left it in the backyard... next time would be different. I would keep a close eye on them and maybe encourage them to actually play golf with it.

I noticed the kids playing with it over the weekend. Of course they'd found it, nothing is sacred or secret in this house! I watched them playing turtles/superheroes whatever, once again using the golf clubs as weapons but on this occasion they weren't hurting each other.

Today though, today was another story. Today all three were smacking the bejeezus out of each other with plastic golf clubs within seconds! It was one big screaming match, tears were flowing and yet they were still smacking each other with those bloody sticks!!! I lost it. The entire kit went in the bin. The bin is collected and emptied tomorrow night and the fcuking golf kit will be gone. Apologies to my friend that gave it to the kids, I'll replace it with something less weapon-like. No more bloody golf in this house! The cricket kits he got for his birthday will also be staying packed away for the forseeable. Sorry Monkey Man.