Someone call Mommy Protective Services

I have a headache. A big headache.

Why? Because when you get socked in the cheek, it hurts all the way up to the top of your head.

Bless your heart, Mis! How'd that happen??

My son beat me up.

He's five.

Tonight he was sitting in my lap as we read Mad Maddie. Now, you should know, my lap is prime real estate. Location, location, location. On the rare nights when I do Daddy's job of bedtime stories, there is a huge bidding war over it. Cranky, tired children ranging from 25 to 50 pounds use subversive, slightly illegal and certainly unethical techniques to position themselves there, and the losing bidders do not react very positively. Names are called. Threats are made.

That picture up there?

It looks nothing like that.

Today was one of those days when the two older ones - who are so close, they are almost the same person in two bodies - were being exceptionally evil to one another. I had threatened. It worked - for about 23 seconds. Hostile takeover attempts resumed. Finally I said, mid Maddie, "Okay, that's it, you're still being so ugly, go get in bed."

At which point the 50 pound son, the current property squatter, cried "Nooooooooo!" and flung his defiant little self backwards in a physical display of protest. And his very, very, very hard, very hard head went straight into my cheekbone.

And it hurts. I mean, y'all, it hurts.

It feels exactly the same way it felt last week when his baby brother practiced his own cute new skill of arching his back and throwing his huge melon skull back when requested to do something really repugnant, like, get his jammies on.

Yes. Twice in one week, I have been toddler-slapped.

I remember once hearing that if you are ever being attacked from behind, you should hurl your head back as hard as you can into the attacker's face. They said it will hurt him really bad.

I am hear to testify that it will indeed hurt him really bad.

Perhaps preschoolers have a lot to teach us in the area of self-defense.

Should you ever find yourself in a precarious situation, here are some other techniques you might could try:

• Pick up a coffee cup and bring it down with all your might on their skull while they are obliviously folding laundry.
• When they are lying on the floor, drop the metal clip of a pacifier holder straight down into that area right beneath the eye. It's very sensitive. They might have to leave the room so you won't see them cry. (If they are pregnant, they might stay in the hallway crying a long time.)
  
• As hard as you can, bite the area of the shoulder right above the collar bone. It's very sensitive too. This is especially effective if done in the middle of a sweet hug.
  
• Grab a handful of their chest hair and twist it while you pull at the same time.
  
• If they are breastfeeding and on the couch, you can knee or elbow them in the boobs at least twice a Blues Clues. Trust me, this will bring the tears.
• In the grocery store, beg to push the cart and then run it right up on their heels. That's a real good one. You might even cause them to sit down on the floor right there in the middle of a grocery store aisle and then you can watch their face turn really red while they try not to scream.

I can testify to the sheer pain that each above act ensures because each has been perpetrated upon myself at least once in the past five years. (Except the chest hair one. I myself have not experienced this personally, thank you. But a member of my household has assured me it inflicts severe injury.)

I hope you never have to use any of the above defensive techniques. But if the situation ever arises, just remember -

act like you're four.

It could save your life.