Samurai princess

Over the weekend a bunch of families got together to play games. (The adults played games, the kids just played.) At one point I found out that my pink-wearing princess (age six) kicked our hosts' eight-year-old son in the...well, she kicked him. This was witnessed by our hostess, who then saw her son push my daughter to the floor. The boy got in trouble for pushing a girl, and the girl was mildly advised not to kick boys. Especially there. I was going to go reprimand my daughter less mildly, and I probably should have, but I must admit there was a part of me that was rather proud of her. And then there's the fact that in this day and age it kind of sticks in my throat to tell my daughter to 'be nice to boys.' I am perfectly fine with her feeling capable of kicking a boy...anywhere, if he deserves it. The problem with this weekend is that they were fighting over which of the many rooms available to them they were going to play in. He didn't deserve it, and she needs to know that, but I don't want to quash at the age of six her reflex to fight back when she feels threatened. I also don't wish to go into detail on the various ways she could wind up feeling threatened some day. So I left her with the mild reproach she got from my friend and hoped that the instinct would remain intact, tempered by an understanding of when it's okay to kick and when it's better to just go play in another room.

I am happy to report that the fighting instinct hasn't gone anywhere in the last forty-eight hours. This evening we met with the same family at the track of the junior high by their house. The idea was to walk around the track and get exercise. That idea was lost on the children. They were too busy playing in sand for the long jump, sitting in the grass, and, towards the end, jumping on the pads for the high jump. There were two other boys at the pads, apparently brothers, who were giving the kids a hard time. The older of the two told them he was going to call 911 because they were not supposed to play on the pads and they were trespassing (despite the fact that his brother was actually lying under the top pad and making it impossible for our kids to jump without landing on him). We told the two boys to leave the kids alone, that no one was going to call the police and basically told everyone to leave everyone else alone. By the time we were down at the other end of the track, though, it was obvious they were back at it. Our kids were jumping on the pads, the two brothers were on their bikes, apparently telling them to get off. And then, from down the field, I see my six-year-old hop down off the pads and march up to the twelve/thirteen-year-old. She stopped right in front of him, and even from that distance, it was clear she was having an in-your-face moment. She wasn't yelling or anything, but her stance said nothing of compliance or backing down.

Later, I found out from my son that her comment at that moment was, "I'll take care of him."

He's lucky he was sitting on a bike.