Defender of the Innocent

It's not often that yelling at your kid ends in any sort of positive, but darn if the strangest things don't happen around this household.

To defend my self, here was the deal - my 6-month old was sitting in her seat, bouncing like a bobblehead, trying to eat some carrot mush I was feeding her. We were listening to the radio we were informed a tornado warning (warning, meaning we've seen one and it's coming this way) came over the squawk box. I figured (being a midwesterner and having survived countless warnings of this sort), that it was time to hustle, not run.

So I kept feeding the carrots to the kid, who, God bless her, just wasn't cooperating. The strained vegetable matter had fashioned itself into a beard on her face, and she's picked up this thing where she spits. CSI could have had a field day the spatter of carrot blood on the white tray table.

My four-and-a-half year old handled things better, but not by much. She was nervous, and when she gets nervous, she gets distracted. You tell her something and if it gets through, which can take two or three times, you have to keep her on task or it will disappear in her chasm of distraction. I really needed her to get a bottle out of the fridge since we'd be downstairs waiting out the storm for God knows how long, but it just wasn't sinking in. Then the sirens went off.

The sirens have always sort of evoked a mild panic in me, and my reaction was in line with that Pavlovian response. To wit, I snapped at the older kid, telling her to get the bottle. She responded, as girls that age do, by throwing her arms up in the air and running out of the room in tears, the bottle still firmly in the fridge.

At this point, my priorities were 1) finish feeding the young 'un, 2) get the bottle, 3) get the two kids downstairs before the tornado got any closer. There was time. Quit looking at me like that.

But the smaller kid would not eat. The sirens were blaring, the carrots continued running down her cheek, and I snapped again. In a raised voice, I spat "EAT!" Please understand the stress.

Through the wail of the sirens, I heard a strong voice behind me.

"Don't yell at my sister."

There stood the older kid, arms crossed and dead serious. Immediately I softened (I'm not a monster) and got everything cleaned up and every one down stairs. The tornado passed us by, something I'm still thankful for.

But tonight, I smile thinking about my daughter. She and I are pretty close, and like a lot of almost 5-year-olds, she's a goofy kid. She and her mother fight, but she doesn't fight with me so much. It's not a "good cop bad cop" thing, but more of a personality mesh - she's more like me at this stage in her life. Sometimes I worry about that, how other kids will respond, whether gumption and fortitude is in her future. Than I see her mother come through so clearly in her personality like I did tonight, and I just smile. She's going to be fine.

She's a defender of the innocent and weak against the big strong jerk who was yelling at her to eat her carrots, even if it was in the face of mortal danger. I'm proud of her, a whole bunch.