My 10-year-old arrived home from school today and proudly announced, "A kid tried to pick on me and scratch me in the eye and I put him in a half-nelson."

"Did you get in trouble?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "But that kid didn't bother me the rest of the day."

My son has just begun learning to wrestle and he is quite enthusiastic about it. He's the tiniest kid in the fifth grade and is quite proud of his newfound wrestling skills.

I guess the playground bully discovered that the hard way today. I've never encouraged my son to fight or even to fight back, so the story he related to me today threw me. I'm not sure what to think about it, or what to do, if anything.

This evening, my son was demonstrating his wrestling techniques on his older brother, who was happy to oblige since it gave him an opportunity to pound on his little brother. Even with all his amazing wrestling moves, my 50-pound he-man was not able to pin his 130-pound older brother. I wonder why?

They had fun, though, as evidenced in the photos (those aren't grimaces of pain, but rather, uncontrolled giggling) Mac the Cat, who always has to be part of the action, was their captive audience.