Momma bear

The other day I took both boys on the LIRR and then the subway to go visit a friend on the Upper West Side. It was our first sizable trip just the three of us.

Things that went right:
Everyone had fun
Ronen didn't get hungry/mess his diaper/start to cry on the trains
We were home in enough time to enjoy some late afternoon lego playtime

Things that went wrong:

I lost my return ticket for the LIRR and had to buy another
I left Ranger's sippy at our friend's house
Ranger spilled my entire sweet tea
I nearly got in a fight at lunch.

Yes, you read that last one right.

I thought I was going to have to knock the crazy outta some old guy. He decided that the one path of three that my stroller partially blocked (most people could get by, but larger people couldn't) was THE only route he would take and he nearly tipped, and certainly jostled, my stroller with Ronen in the infant seat. When he first passed I was blocked in by the stroller and just steadied the infant seat and cursed the guy out.*

But I figured I would stand...thinking the guy might come back, and sure enough he "had" to take the same route back. I blocked the whole path and went momma bear on him. I might not have out weighed him, but I know how to plant my feet and hold my ground- I did take two and a half years of Karate. It was a long time ago now, but some things the body remembers. I had set my feet the moment he approached. If he had asked me to move the stroller I would have. No problem. But dude was crazy.

He was still seriously going to try to push his way through me.  I was totally prepared to knock him over. The other mommas around me were shouting at him even as I was cussing at him for messing with a baby.

But then I spotted a body builder type guy and said hey look over there to the crazy guy (the body builder type was already trying to help, I just sorta pressed him into being a more active participant). The body builder guy stepped in and somehow managed to point out what I had not been able to get through to the guy- there were two other ways of getting where he wanted to go. Crazy guy went around. Good thing too. The way I was feeling, and the way the other mommas in the store were behaving, crazy guy would not have fared well if he had persisted.
I have to say, everyone (other than crazy guy) in the place was great. On our way out I had offers to hold the door for us, people helped with our trash tray, etc.  I thanked the body builder guy on our way out and he was lovely too. One crazy old guy in a store of a lot of very lovely people. It could have been worse. I could have had to knock the guy down. He could have tried to push through (read: would have quickly found himself charged with assault...which would have made my day more not fun because of the time involved)

 (Wish I had had a Pocket Marine though, that would have been nice).


*When I recounted this tale to E at the end of the day, I told him my exact words, which were not very nice to say the least- at least one F bomb was deployed. He got a huge chuckle out of it because when we first started dating I had a curse jar on my desk at work and people had to put in a quarter for swearing. New York is wearing off on me I guess.