Tyler vs the Bullies

  I took the three oldest to the school carnival last week while Randy stayed home with the baby. While we were at the carnival, the kids wanted to use their tickets to jump in the bouncy house. As we were in line, the lady in charge said that they were going to divide the line into 'small kids' and 'bigger kids.' I asked Tyler which group he wanted to be in and he said he wanted to be in with the bigger kids. The groups get 2 full minutes of play before the next round gets to go inside. Tyler went in with the big kids while Lily, Jake and I waited outside for their turn. But, Tyler had only been inside less than a minute when he came back out again. I asked him "Did you have fun?" and he said "Yeah,...well, no." He looked like he could cry. I asked him what happened and he proceeded to tell me that while inside, the other boys asked "What grade are you in?" and Tyler had said "3rd grade." Then, they told him "We are in 5th grade and you can't be in here with us." So Tyler left.
I felt so bad for my sweet Tyler. I told him that he was bigger than all three of those 5th graders and that he could go back in, but Ty didn't want to anymore. I told him that the kids were just bullies and he shouldn't pay them any attention.
I didn't think too much of it, until today when Tyler came home from school nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement. Then, he told me the coolest story ever:

Tyler was walking home from school when those same three bully 5th grader boys came up to him and called him "puny." Tyler said "Do you want to measure size?" (meaning let's see who is bigger.) The smallest boy came up to him and his head came to the middle of Ty's stomach. After measuring, he looked scared. The second tallest boy came up to measure and he came to Tyler's chin. He looked scared too.  Finally, the third and tallest boy walked up to Tyler and he said "I'm taller!" and then realized too late that he only came to Tyler's nose. Tyler then told me "I tried to look as confident as possible!"

Next, the tallest boy walked back and picked up a golf ball sized rock and threw it at Tyler.  (Can you believe he threw a rock at my little boy!! Tyler is two years younger than him for crying out loud!) But here is the best part; Tyler caught the rock  in the air,with one hand, before it hit him. He looked at the rock, back at the boys, and dropped the rock to the ground. Then, the tallest boy picked up another rock and held it behind him for another boy to grab. He said "Grab it!" But when he looked back, his friends were running away. He dropped the rock and ran away from Tyler with the rest of the boys. Tyler didn't think that catching the rock and that being taller than those 5th graders could be so effective.

He was so excited and I was so proud that I had to take a picture of his cute happy face. 

 Can you feel the excitement exuding from his entire body?!

I'm so glad that he "beat the bullies" so to speak. I'm also glad that he didn't throw the rock back at them or throw any punches to get the point across that he wasn't going to back down. Although, I feel he would have been justified if he had thrown the rock back at them. Hooray for my wonderful, brave, tall, non violent, 3rd grader!