The Protector

I've been meaning to share this story for a while now, but life is just busy. Alas, it's spring break! Happy times!

About 3-4 weeks ago (I think???), we met some friends for dinner at Chick-fil-a one Saturday night. We all ate and then let the kids go play while the parents got to talk. We were sitting right by the play area so we could see the kids playing. It was a whole lot of fun...

UNTIL...

My sweet friend Becky kind of checked out of the conversation for a second and when Ryan and I turned to see what had caught her attention, we were stunned. Speechless. Shocked. For what we saw we would have previously bet our lives that it would never be a sight our eyes would behold. But our eyes were beholding! And our brains were not believing!!! Even now, weeks later. I'm still speechless.

(I know you're dying to know what we saw.)

When we turned and looked in the play area, we saw our sweet, little peanut of a daughter standing over a boy who had to have been a good 6-8 inches taller than her. She had him on the ground. Fists balled up. I never actually saw her hit him, but minutes later the little boy came out and said, "Dad! She was hitting me! And I didn't do anything!" Ryan jumped up and ran into the play area to break up the little scuffle. Eva's side of the story was that the boy was messing with Eli. We still are not exactly sure what happened.

We later asked our friends' little girl who is older than Eva about what had happened. She said that the little boy was chasing Eli and every time the kid got close to Eli, he screamed. For those who don't know Eli, screaming is what he does best. He screams when he's excited, he screams when he's mad, he screams just to hear himself scream sometimes. To Eva's credit, she really thought she was protecting Eli. I think that Eli was having the time of his life and didn't need to be protected.

Needless to say, we had a very stern discussion with Eva that evening about how it is never okay to hit someone. Secretly, we were high-fiving each other for her ability to stand up for herself if she needs to. Because she is so tiny, we tend to think that she is helpless, but girl's got some FIGHT!

Never been more proud to be her momma! :)

(We still remind her regularly that it's not okay to be aggressive.)

I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around seeing that little girl standing over that bigger boy after she put him in his place!

Oh and also, thankfully!!!, the dad of the little boy was beyond gracious about what happened. He never got upset or anything. It could have gone very badly, but he was very kind about it all.