Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Mean Girls

It's been a while since I've posted, but since then I've been 1) to Asia, 2) working, and 3) to Disneyland. I will write about none of those right now, but I did want to talk about something else. My oldest daughter, Amelia, hasn't wanted to go to school lately -- and I've recently uncovered that she has a bully! It's like Mean Girls, Preschool Style.

She used to be friends with these two girls, but they have turned on her and now make her miserable. I am totally reliving all the stuff I would just as soon forget. The good news, though, is that having had 36 years of formulating come-backs after the fact, I am now much better at them -- so I have been working with her on rehearsing comebacks. Like when one girl tries to scare her by saying that there is a ghost in the room, and I told her to say something like, "Yes, there is a ghost, and it's your smelly fart!" Or when a mean girl tells her that's she's a nincompoop, I told her to say "I know you are, but what am I?" (that, I know is not very original). I was going to make her wear these funky striped pants (that I would wear were they in my size) but she refused since one of the mean girls makes fun of those pants, so I actually reconsidered (remembering what my mother made me wear) and put her in khakis today.

This is not as bad, though, as a case I know of (I think this took place in second grade) where the mean girls, also ex-friends of the victim at hand, invented a play about the girl they were being mean to. I guess at least nobody created an adaptation of Ulysses for use in my ridicule.

I am realizing that, in a sort of reincarnation, I am going to have to go through everything all over again -- the mean girls, the awkward phases (though no one can outdo me on that one), rejection and bad tempers...I can't wait.