We were cool parents for about 2 hours

Our boys have been begging for an air soft war for the entirety of the summer.

We relented and allowed them to invite all their gun owning friends for a "smallish" war in the back field behind our house. 

It wasn't fancy, there wasn't enough cover, and it was still light outside...but the boys didn't seem to care.

They brought their weapons of "not so massive destruction" and vowed to shoot up the neighborhood.

All I could think when seeing these boys with guns was "When in the crap did we let these boys buy air soft guns...who's bright idea was this anyway?"

The size of the back yard war was masked only by the smiles on my two oldest offsprings' faces.

I hate violence and I hate air soft guns, but my opinions have been squashed by my significant other and all reason and sanity have been thrown out the window. 

Thankfully there were a few rules.

Everyone involved was required to wear eye protection.  (My dad and brother are eye doctors...I would be a fool not to require that!)

Parental permission was required for everyone involved.

If any adult or child showed up that wasn't already present, the shooting had to stop immediately for safety reasons.  We also warned the kids that if any neighbor complained, we would end the game.  (We don't want our neighbors to hate us.)

For about 2 hours the shooting commenced and happiness ensued.

(I went inside and baked cookies trying to pretend my children weren't pretending to kill each other.)

By the end of the night, the teams were completely unfair with the teenagers on one side and the 10 year olds on the other.  The younger kids were completely out gunned.  Their shrieks of "Stop shooting at us...we're trying to reload!" were hilarious and slightly pathetic.  

My favorite part of the night???

The fact that our darling neighbor girl showed up as Captain America!  

It was great to have goodness and justice on our side.

And...she shared her costume with Colby and Say.

Love that super hero girl!

At the end of the night, there were only two casualties.  Two of the younger kids got beaned in the face from a CO2 gun.  There was actual blood drawn.  We will outlaw those next time. 

We handed out ice packs and cookies to the wounded...because these warriors trying to kill each other are still young enough to think ice and cookies might just fix something.