Mama is FIERCE!

While I was watering our garden for the past few days (we are already 6" below) I kept on hearing this squawking .I look up and a bird is dive-bombing my head.  I veer to the left, and it makes a circle to come back around and try again.  I kept on imagining Alfred Hitchcock's famous movie, "The Birds".  I look around to make sure I'm not dealing with a flock, but only one.  I turn on my hose real fast and give her a few squirts.

Why was she flipping out?  I start walking the perimeter of the garden watering, and I find two baby birds, still not able to fly hanging out on the wires of our tomato cage.  I absolutely understand why that bird tried to attack me, her little babies are vulnerable and her fierce "mama" attitude came out.  I quickly turned off the hose and ran inside as to avoid any pecking.

I sympathized with the bird because I had my Mama Bear moment a few weeks ago...

We signed Nolan up for soccer and excitedly went to his first practice.  I kept on looking for his team thinking all the boys seemed so much bigger than Nolan.  Come to find out, he's in the 1st through 3rd grade league.  Nolan's in 1st grade, and a young 1st grader at that.  I felt like they towered over him.  A week later, we arrived to practice again, and they asked the boys to run a lap to warm up.  They started running, and I heard one boy yell at Nolan, "You run like a girl. hahahaha."   I held my breath to see Nolan's reaction.  I guess this isn't a big insult in 1st grade, because Nolan didn't really respond to it.  Then, they line up to do corner kicks.  They were asked to stop the ball with their foot and keep it there.  The boy in front of Nolan kicked it out from Nolan's foot and sarcastically says, "Go get it."  Nolan was annoyed, I started fidgeting.  He hustles for his ball, gets back in line where he was, and the same boy kicks it down the field again and says, "You can't cut, go to the end of the line."  I felt the claws coming out.  Especially when Nolan hustled to get his ball AGAIN, and was visibly upset.  The coach thought he was goofing off, and told him to hustle up and control the ball.

I seriously had to hold myself back.  I wanted to go over to the kid, kick HIS ball as hard as possible and yell in his face, "GO GET IT!"  How horrible of me would that have been??  I didn't say a word though, just gave him evil eyes from the sidelines trying to send telepathic messages to cut it out.

The term "Mama Bear" is a pretty new phrase to me.  My oldest is only 6.  My definition is: "a mom who is protective of her children."  Sometimes I think there is a fine line between being protective and being a hindrance.  I was protective of Nolan, and made sure I kept my eyes on the situation.  I was not a hindrance by interfering in the situation (i.e. tackling the other kid).

 I need to push down the urge to solve every little situation that might arise.  There is so much to learn from kids working things out by themselves, I just have to step back and actually let that happen.

I will continue to still be fierce Mama Bear, but only from a distance.