Sagey's got a gun

Sage has a new game where she pretends to have a gun, holding out her thumb and forefinger in the classic make-believe gesture. She points it at some hapless innocent like her father, and gleefully shouts, "Bam-bam!" Then, when the supposed shooting victim pretends to fall over, Sage abruptly shifts gears and coos, "Poor Daddy! Let's help him!" At this point, Mommy and any other available onlookers are recruited to haul the victim to his feet, after which the gunshot wound is apparently miraculously healed. "No more owie!" Sage proclaims.

I'm not actually very troubled at this display of violent tendencies, though it does seem somewhat passive-aggressive. But in the first place, I think that girls need a little more physical aggression than is generally encouraged; and in the second place, this is actually mild compared to Sage's previous behavior of smacking anyone who annoyed her in the head with the nearest blunt object.

Of course, being the John Woo-freak that I am, I jokingly told Sage that her next step, of course, was to learn to fire her imaginary gun while jumping sideways in dramatic slow-motion, preferably while wearing a trenchcoat, with doves or pigeons taking flight in the background. She frowned at me for a moment, then attempted to oblige by hopping vertically up and down, thumbs firing round after round of unseen bullets. "Bam-bam! Bam-bam! Bam-bam!"