When Skills Come in Handy

I was looking back through old home videos last night and was feeling very reminiscent seeing my children so young and little. 
I giggled and smiled seeing this one of Aubrey and Connor sparring each other when Jed ran his martial arts school several years ago.

When I think back to the present, I am grateful that those years of martial arts have come in handy for Aubrey especially.   She is a strong individual who will stick up for herself. She knows she can put up a good fight if she had to.   I'll give you two examples.

Example One: Last year while Jed was away in Iraq, Aubrey had to play in the pep band for the basketball games. During this time, there were several boys that really liked her. There was a particular boy who suddenly tried to kiss her during one of these games. Before the boy had a second to act, Aubrey gave him a powerful blow to the stomach. (This girl knows how to generate power in a punch.) That poor boy couldn't say a word as he was hunched over, holding his stomach and groaning in pain. Aubrey was so mad at that boy, lol, and told him to never try that again. She was still genuinely upset and near tears when I picked her up after the game that day. She told me she wanted to move away. I asked her what the boy said after she punched him, she said he couldn't say anything at the moment. :) That boy didn't talk to her for a long while after that. Later he told Aubrey he learned his lesson and would never try to kiss her again. This year they are talking again and on good terms, but he definitely hasn't tried to kiss her since.

Example Two: Last week Aubrey told us about another boy who kept touching her bottom at school. The first two times she asked him to stop.   He didn't.   (Wow, the audacity of this boy.)   I was immediately angry at this disrespectful, adolescent male; how dare he touch our daughter like that!   Jed and I were oblivious that anything was going on until she came home and announced to us that she punched a boy that day. She punched him real good and hard. Afterwards the boy said, "Man, I didn't know girls could hit!"   Well, surprise, this particular girl does.   You can thank her daddy for that, young man.  :)   Dad was very proud of her.  I was still upset at this boy and was ready to go give him a few words of my own.   Since Aubrey had taken care of the situation herself, I told Aubrey the next time to not be so nice, she has permission to give any boy a lesson the first or second time around. (I say second time because Aubrey prefers to give an advanced warning first of what's coming if the behavior doesn't stop - obviously the boys don't take her seriously until it's too late.)

Yesiree, skills are an important thing to have in life, especially when it keeps the boys at bay.  But I'm not so naive to think that in the coming years, Aubrey might have a different outlook on getting kisses from boys.  But I think by then, they'll all be too scared to try.  And we're ok with that.  :)