mama bear?

Saturday night we stayed at The St. John Inn to celebrate our last weekend in the islands. It's a really cute and comfy mom & pop motel, but had definitely gone down hill since we last stayed there the night of our wedding.
We had Piper's pack n play set up in the corner of the room, right next to a sofa. She was climbing on the sofa and we kept asking her to "put her hiney on the seat" or else she was going to fall off the seat and onto the cement floor. Of course she wasn't paying attention to us and kept standing up on the sofa. Patrick was standing behind the sofa, over by the bed, putting some of our clothes away while I was standing across from her in the bathroom. We both were asking her to please sit down when she lost her balance and started to fall backwards. It was a slow fall and we both reacted as soon as she started to fall. Patrick called out "I've got her" but we were both running towards her at the same time when I did it...

I pushed Patrick out of the way.

Just like a baseball player calls out to his team member that he's got the ball so that they won't go smashing into each other at full speed, Patrick let me know he was gonna get her in time. And I know he would have. But the Mama Bear in me put her arm out and full-on shoved my sweet, wonderful, caring and patient husband out of the way so that I could get to Piper first. I don't even remember thinking to put my arm out to push him, I just did. I felt horrible. Actually, I started crying. I'm not sure why, I just felt so horrible that I would be so controlling to actually push Patrick out of the way to get to her first. It felt selfish on my part, like I was taking Patrick's chance at comforting her away from him. That was Saturday afternoon and I still feel badly about it. Was it my mother's intuition that I knew I would have gotten to her first, or was it the mama bear in me that thinks that I take the best care of Piper? Not sure, but I'm thinking that it is mostly a sign that the week I spend away from Piper when we are in Atlanta will be good for me.

Oh yea, and Piper was fine. She didn't even hit the floor. She did a slow fall down the sofa and then tumbled into the side of the pack n play that broke her fall.