NATHAN, the DEFENDER!

It was a night like any other night at Chick-Fil-A. Laura was working, so the boys and I splurged on some hot nuggets and cool lemonade. After a hearty (?) meal, we crashed the indoor playground which was packed with kids young and old. Some were probably a little too old for the playground, actually. There's this sign on the door that says all children must have an adult inside the play area with them. I noticed there wasn't a single adult in the room with the 15+ kids, so I figured I'd hang out. Everything was cool... the boys jumped right into the mix, happy to run into a couple of friends from school in one of the tunnels... and then they approached THE SLIDE. There was a group of 3 older kids sitting cross-legged and chatting about whatever 10 year olds discuss these days (video games, parents, Obama's marxist-socialist agenda). They seemed to ignore the fact that there were two young boys eager to get to the slide. I watched curiously to see how the boys would handle this blockade. Evan just acted like they were part of the structure and proceded to push and climb his way over and past them to his goal. Apparently one of them said something to Evan about the slide being closed, I don't know. What I DO know is that Nathan suddenly bowed up to the girl with the biggest mouth and told her angrily and forcefully, "He's my brother! and He can go down the slide if he wants to!" Meangirl spewed back at Nathan that Evan was too little to go down the slide. "No he's NOT! He's almost four and I'm almost six and we can go down if we want to!" Evan looked back at Nathan as if to say, "thanks", and climbed over the remaining obstruction (girl) and went down the slide. Meanwhile, back at the blockade, Meangirl was apparently struggling with the fact that a five-year-old was calling her out in front of her friends. She said something about how old she and her friends were and that they were bigger than him. Nathan pointed behind her in my direction and informed her that his Daddy was 39 and a lot bigger than all of them and something about my making them get out of the way. I decided it was time to intervene before Evan got back up there and started throwing blows (Nathan tends to fight with words, Evan not-so-much!). "Excuse me, guys... is there a problem up there with the little guys going down the slide?" With a look of surprise, Meangirl replied, "Oh... no... there's no problem." "OK, good!" I must say that I was very proud of Nathan for standing up for Evan's right to slide!