Girls Like Those

We were at the library yesterday when several tweens showed up in a group. Wanting to play with the pipe cleaners and styrofoam, we joined them at the arts and crafts table, though both Bud and Sis were intimidated by them. So I said the girls wouldn't eat them.

Except that one girl said she would. For dinner.

And it went downhill from there, though no longer addressed directly to us.

They did what preteen girls sometimes do, were mean to each other in order to impress other each others. There was even a gay joke, with a girl bringing a book with the word gay in it (about a place called Gay-Neck?) and saying another girl needed it. And them all tittering and being offended. I didn't even know what to say. Though if it had been outloud or obvious, I know I would have said something. But since all my kids could do was sit and stared wide eyed and mouths agape, as if staring at strangely scary and gross animals in a zoo, I didn't want to draw any more attention to them than necessary. Especially since Sis had written her whole name on her project and Bud had commenced a special project on a styrofoam block.

More specifically, I was chicken. These were the groups of girls that made me nervous all through school. I might be 38+ years old, but I'm still not about to take on a pack of popular kids when I'm outnumbered.

Yet.

Because, if they'd done anything to harm or upset my kiddos, I could've squished them like the little preadolescent bugs they were.

I just dread the day my kids become those kids.

Which I know will come.