Bang! Bang! You're...

Wait. Lightsabers don't go 'bang bang'.

Little P is definitely our kid. If you ask her what does Darth Vader sound like, she'll put her hand up in a little fist over her mouth and breath heavy (it's frigging hilarious). Ask her what a Wookie sounds like and she'll 'howl' like Chewbacca. She knows who Yoda is, who Han and Luke are and even what the Millenium Falcon sounds like.

Little P doing her 'Darth Vader' impersonation.
Apparently the bowl from a salad spinner makes a good helmet.
Who knew?

All without ever having seen any of the movies (cause, she's too little for that kind of viewing). 

Most of it is due to M and I being big old geeks. We have Star Wars memorabilia all over the house (not a lot of it, but enough). And for Christmas last year, she got a 'Star Wars ABC' book, which is where most of her Star Wars knowledge comes from (that and the fact that M and I might quote it from time to time).

Recently, during a brief moment of cooperation as I was changing her, Little P had a chapstick and was holding it with both hands making a 'vvvmmm' sound (apparently that's the technical term for 'lightsaber noise'. Thank you Yahoo Answers.). She had me a little stumped there for a while, and then it clicked. 'Honey, is that a lightsaber?' She nods her head 'yes'. Well what do you know? That's on new one on me.

Naturally, I of course grabbed another chapstick and we spent the next ten minutes having a lightsaber duel, making noises, and with me, obviously, being dealt the death blow. If anyone had of been able to see us, they would have wondered what on earth we were doing.

Fast forward a couple of days later, and we are at the local park, when Little P picks up what looks like the handle of a plastic toy gun. For a moment, I'm a little freaked, as we don't play with 'guns' at home (she of course could have seen it at school) and was wondering if I should discourage this kind of play or let her just have at it, when she starts going 'vvmmm' again. Yay for lightsabers! That's one less conversation M and I have to have, for a little while at least.

I'm not saying that kids playing make believe with guns is a bad thing (heck, I used to do it all the time with my brother, although I think we used blasters - there's Star Wars again). It's just that, in this very charged environment about pro-guns / anit-guns, things are a little nuts (like the two little boys who got suspended for 'shooting' each other with their fingers. They are SIX!!). As a parent, you tend to feel, um, worried? Overprotective? Concerned? About how another parent might react to your little one running around going 'bang bang'. And seriously, there are so many more important things to be worrying about then whether or not Little Johnny’s parents are going to flip out if they see your little one ‘shooting’ him.

So, till next time dear readers, remember as Obi-Wan so eloquently puts it ‘Anyone can use a blaster or a fusioncutter – but to use a lightsaber well, was a mark of someone a cut above ordinary.’ (and really, who wants to be ordinary?)

K