As a mom who is desperate, you figure out what the kids like playing outside and then figure out a way to recreate those activities for safe indoor play - meaning they don't break everything in your house. My kids love having Nerf gun wars. We only use the Nerf guns that have a spongy bullet with the suction cup on the end so it should be safe for indoor use, right?
When my son purchased these guns, I "oo'd and aah'd" over their purported 75 foot shooting distance. I figured that it would wear my kids out having to retrieve "bullets" which were shot that kind of distance. Never even gave it a thought about how these guns might perform indoors.
So what did I do when the "it's too hot to play outside, can we have a Nerf war inside?" is so sweetly and politely requested. Of course I agreed to it. I mean, it is Nerf, it should be fine, right?
Of course, I didn't really think about that 75 foot shooting distance capability, I was just hoping to not have to hear 4 kids whine anymore about the heat. Within a few short minutes I heard the scampering of feet as the kids ran through the house at lightning speed taking up positions, the giggles of kids who'd dodged a Nerf bullet, and the sounds of boys pretending they'd been shot.
Within minutes the battle had expanded and before I knew it, I had bullets whizzing past my head, bouncing off the walls in my "home office" (ok, it's currently my formal dining room but I have hopes and dreams of it one day becoming my home office), sticking to my computer monitor, hitting the dog in the behind, and bouncing off all the framed wall art in my living areas.
Before I could get out a "Hey! Keep it in your rooms!", I felt the unmistakable suction of a Nerf dart stick itself to the back of my neck............ and that's when the tides of the summer blues turned. Without taking the time to remove the dart stuck to the back of my neck, I got up from my desk, grabbed 2 of the Nerf machine gun pistols and reloaded them with the stray Nerf darts laying all over my office floor. I walked into their battle zone with the machine guns in my hands and with the Mom look of "are you kidding me?!".
My children and their friends looked on with fear in their eyes as my son said "Ummm..... Mom? Mom? Uhhh...... Mom?". I looked up as he gestured to the back of his neck and said "ummm...... you have a...... ummm....uhhhh...". With both pistols loaded and ready, I looked at him innocently as I said as though oblivious to his gesturing "I have ....... what???".
My son cleared his throat while my daughter and their friends examined the floor tiles trying to stifle their giggles. Gesturing to the back of his neck, my son tried again "You .... ummmm....... have a ......... uhhh........". Ever so carefully lifting the pistols so as not to draw attention to them, I said "I have a??? ..........." and started unleashing a torrent of machine gunned Nerfs at them while I yelled "a Nerf stuck to the back of my neck??!!!! This means WAR!!!!!!! Free-dom!!!!!!". (You can't have a good Nerf battle without interjecting a little bit of Braveheart.)
Once the kids got over the initial shock of my surprise attack, they were jumping behind furniture, behind each other, around hall corners, anything to get out of the line of my bullets that were meeting their mark more often than not. There was squealing, laughter, and lots of yelling for backup and reinforcements.
In the end, I was able to win the day when my husband came in the door from work, saw the war being waged and grabbed a gun and helped me hold off the gang of riff-raff until all of us were out of bullets. That was lots of fun and not only helped entertain the kiddos, but burned off a lot of their energy reserves to where they were all ready to kick back and relax for a bit.
Of course, we are still finding stray Nerf bullets between the furniture cushions and in the window blinds. And that's how we beat the heat on a hot summer day in Texas. What do you do to beat the heat?
by: Christie Bielss
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