Oma Bear

Hurling myself through the air, I impulsively lunged and tackled my inattentive, pregnant daughter whose life - and the life of my soon-to-be first-born grandchild - were in imminent peril. Saving them wasn’t even a thought. It was an instantaneous, instinctive reflex. With a daft maneuver, she and the baby-in-the-belly landed gently in a safety zone. A collective sigh of relief swirled about the room as mother and child were no longer in danger. 

Ok, it didn’t go down quite that way…

Truth be told, I did lunge, but… I didn’t really tackle her, per se. I “assertively steered” her away from what felt like a dangerous situation. And I yelled like a woman with her graying hair on fire, not so much like the grace-under-fire persona that I prefer to operate out of. Nope. And no one was relieved; rather, they were pretty much shocked at my overzealous protectiveness. And it’s safe to say that they thought I was weird…which was not shocking because, truth be told, on occasion, I can be. A disproportionally aggressive response to a seemingly non-threatening situation, I clearly overreacted. 

What actually happened was that, with a much louder than necessary voice, I vehemently ordered my second born to, “Get away from the stairs!” Imbued by a force from beyond, I “proactively ensured her safety” by placing my hand on her back (not tackling her) and assertively moved her and my pre-grandson away from the top of the staircase. Ok, kinda maybe shoved her? Like a little shove-ette? In a loving and protective way... /sigh I admit it. I was a tad over the top, but not overly obnoxiously so; just in a cute, bossy pants save-the-kids endearing kind of way.

Mind you, she was totally fine, and a good 3 feet away from the top of the stairs. Seriously, though, it felt like she was teetering! Surrounded by her three not-so-long-ago obnoxious sisters, my subconscious perceived the situation as precarious, anticipating that the girls were going to quickly escalate into a frenzied lather resulting in a plummet. In reality, they were all laughing at an acceptable level of decorum and were having a relatively peaceful, good time. 

Caught off guard, I was completely nonplussed about the situation. Everyone else was fairly shocked as well, then followed up with non-convincing assurances of: “Mom! She’s ok! She’s ok!!” To everyone’s surprise, my Oma Bear instincts had taken over even before my grandchild arrived on the outside. Who knew there would even be Oma Bear instincts in addition to Mama Bear instincts?! Let me tell you, they’re a whole other level of paranoid and protective.

Excerpt from "Oma Bear"originally published on LinkedIn