Angels vs. Demons

I am very proud of Bud. I always am but especially so after last night. We went to the bowling alley to watch Mr. MND sub for someone in a league. There is another little boy, the same age, that goes to watch his father and he is Naughty with a capital N. And I’m not talking like that loveable, mischievous naughty, I’m talking downright bad! This boy pushed my son down knocking him into the arcade games, he body slammed him and laid on top of him to hold him down, he taught him how to go behind the video games to hide (YIKES!), and I’m sure there was more I didn’t see. As his mother I was flipping out at how my son was being treated and obviously on a few occasions intervened to break it up but I also wanted to give him a little space so he could react to the situations without mom always stepping in. After all, he’s at school all day without me and he needs to know this stuff, but Bud can have quite the temper when he wants to so I was also a little curious at how he would react to these situations. When the boy shoved him down I was across the alley (which isn’t very far in our little country bowling alley) and I sprung right up to go intervene. Before I was able to get there he picked himself up and turned to the boy and said “Pushing isn’t nice. Don’t push me!” I had to take the lead from Bud and not snatch the little twerp and shake him telling him to quit picking on my son. Since Bud obviously had the situation under control I didn’t have to say anything but I did tell him to come sit by my for a while. My heart broke a little at the sight of his face because he thought he was getting in trouble. I reassured him that I wanted him to walk away so he wouldn’t get hurt, not because he did something wrong. I assured him he did everything exactly right.

Being the only two kids in the alley that night made it very difficult for them to not interact. And I don’t care how good your children are, no one is making a four year old sit still for 3 hours at a bowling alley with arcade games and a pool table to play with! So I let him play but with a watchful eye. Whenever the twerp, I mean boy, would try to lead him astray I would catch his attention and he knew it was time to stop whatever it was. I was proud of him. I know he’s not always a saint (believe me I know!) but it makes me proud that he can handle himself when he needs to and that he can listen to me when it counts.