My fantastical niece is being bullied at school.

I guess for awhile some girls had been excluding her from things but it went to a whole new level.

She got some new shoes last week that she loved and wore them to school. She did NOT know (and why would it matter anyway?) that one of the “popular” girls (to be known as BadSeed) in the class had the same shoes. BadSeed and a few of her friends shoved her to the ground on the playground and stomped on her feet until her shoes were dirty while they called her a copycat.

The next day, the teacher gave the class a speech about how everyone should be nice to each other and blah, blah, blah. Sylvie said that kids were nice to her on the playground that one day but now nobody plays with her. As she said, “Aunt Anna, I just don’t have any friends.”

When her parents asked Sylvie why she didn’t fight back, she said it was because she was afraid of being suspended. They told her if she got suspended from school for defending herself that she wouldn’t be in trouble at home. I guess BadSeed was physically picking on Sylvie a few days later so Sylvie said she “slammed BadSeed into the table a few times”. Sylvie has heard the story about how I took a rock to school in my bookbag and used it to whack a kid upside the head – I told her to NOT do anything like that.

Sylvie and her mom were talking and the subject of college came up. Sylvie got a weird look on her face and said, “Mom…what if there’s a grownup version of BadSeed at college?!” Gah. I am so pissed off that I want to drive to Oklahoma and beat up a bunch of little fifth grade bitches.

My sister has started picking Sylvie up from school during lunch and bringing her home so she doesn’t have to wander the playground alone or risk getting ganged up on by a bunch of girls.

She’s kind of a tomboy and prefers to wear sweatpants and converse sneakers to school even though she has lots of nice “girly” clothes and would rather slap a headband on than fix her hair. My sister suggested that maybe if she dressed up a bit and ironed her hair that she would be more approachable to people. Sylvie said if people didn’t want to be her friend because of the pants she had on that she didn’t need them to be her friend any other time. Smart kid.

It still makes me sad. Next year she’ll be going to a new school and I’m hoping that by being around some new kids that she’ll make some friends.

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Aunt Anna…what’s pub – puberry – pubity –

Puberty?

Yeah. What’s puberty?

It’s when your body starts changing in different ways to become an adult.

Ew! I don’t want to do that! I don’t want to get wrinkles!

Hahahahahaha! No, kid. The wrinkles come much later. You get those just for getting old. You get boobs and your period with puberty.

Period? I don’t want a period!

Sorry. It’ll come with the territory.

Hey! I’m going to get a pet turtle and teach it The Hokey-Pokey!

And with that the subject was changed and she started showing me how turtles do The Hokey-Pokey.

She was here last week with her mom and dad and we all had a large time. They left yesterday morning and I miss them already. They got home to Oklahoma just in time for a snowstorm today! Sylvie said she couldn’t believe that she was swimming outside here just a week ago.

I got constant little hugs, hand holds and kisses. We took turns kicking each others ass playing cards. It was awesome.

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