I Am Mom, Hear Me Roar

Something inside me changed the day we drove Max home from the hospital after giving birth.  Yes, I felt that amazing warm fuzzy genuine unconditional love that comes with having a child.  But I also felt a deep gutteral "Don't F with my baby or I will rip you limb from limb" instinct that can be only be attributed to our animalistic nature.  Which brings us to today's subject: messing with my kid

I have NO tolerance for bullying.  Today I heard a sad story about one of Moose's friends getting picked on at recess.  And a sense of sadness and anger came over me simultaneously. It seems that second graders have dropped that "everyone is your friend" mantra we have been drilling into them since they could walk over and bite their friends at daycare.  Max is not the only one to mention kids this year being a little feistier than last year (I think feistier is a better word than the one I'd really like to use).  Moose has been upset more than once by a particular kid calling out all of Max's faults, whether it was a bad kick in soccer or a bad pass in football.  Now, please don't think I'm one of those parents who only praises.  I'm not.  When Max told me that someone shouted "bad pass" to him at football the other day, I said in my best mom moment "Well, yeah.  It was a bad pass.  When the other team catches it, that's not a good pass."  But I'm his mom and feel as though these moments of truth come best from me than some kid that will remind Max of his mistake everytime he throws a crappy pass.  And for the record, it wasn't a good pass...

And here is my moment of true inner struggle.  It's when you feel kind of happy about something bad.  I'm not alone here - Pete admits to feeling the same way.  So we are just bad parents together and if you don't want my kid to playdate with your kid anymore, please know that we feel just as protective of Max's friends as we do our own kid so maybe we aren't really all that awful.  But this boy that likes to point out Moose's mistakes was playing football against Moose yesterday.  And Pete said Max totally plowed him over during a play.  It could be chalked up to good defense on Max's part.  But we kind of wonder if Max was a little more aggressive than usual because of his pent up resentment against this kid.  And we kind of feel a little bad that we are glad Max was able to get back just a little bit for the harassment, even though we don't advocate extreme roughness during kids' sports - it was noted between Pete and I that Max did say he was sorry for knocking the kid down.  But maybe if you run your mouth off to my kid and he outweighs you by 20 pounds, perhaps sometimes you might find yourself on your butt during a football play.  And as a parent, I know I shouldn't, but I feel a little better knowing Max got his due.  I'm blaming my reaction to those animalistic instincts.  Just call me Mama Bear.