Mean Girls

I don't know if I ever mentioned that Claire is the youngest kid in her class. She shares this title with Hezekiah; both are just over 16 months old. The oldest child in class is 20-month old Celia who, in a word, is a firecracker! And what do you get when you mix a firecracker with a spark? According to Stew, you get a throwdown in the classroom. Apparently, Claire and Celia had an "incident" inside the plastic playhouse that sits in the corner of the classroom. Wednesday's Brawl in the School Hall was reminiscent of 1974's Mohammed Ali vs. George Foreman Rumble in the Jungle... and even '75's Ali vs. Joe Frazier Thrilla in Manila. Anyone care to place a wager on Wednesday's outcome? Well, allow me to tell you the details from the beginning...

While waiting for a few more students to arrive to class, Claire and Stew were in the corner of the room where Claire was playing inside the plastic playhouse. She likes to enter the house, then open and close the shutters (while Stew sticks his head in the window after Claire opens the shutters). Note: the picture at left is not the playhouse from Claire's school, so no shutters are shown on the window. Anyway, when Celia arrived to class, she eventually made her way into the playhouse. As she opened the door, Celia gave Stew a big grin while saying the word, "open", as she entered. Once inside the house with Claire, Celia decided to go to one side of the room and close the window shutters. But, Claire apparently wanted the shutters on that side of the house to remain open, so she went over and pushed them open and stayed standing next to Celia. Claire just stood there staring (or glaring) at Celia. But Celia responded by putting up her right hand as if to say, "oh, no you didn't!" She put down her hand, but raised it again as if to taunt Claire. Still, Claire stood her ground. Then, in a careless display of aggression, Celia (gently) shoved Claire. Not surprisingly, Claire just continued to stare at Celia with a "you did NOT just do that" look on her face. Then, after a few seconds, Claire simply turned her back on Celia and walked out of the playhouse while no doubt thinking to herself, "I'm gonna make mashed tators out of that little tot!"

The kids went about their usual routine of sitting in a circle and singing songs. Claire was still stewing from the playhouse incident, so she didn't clap after any of the songs. And instead of sitting in Stew's lap during song time, Claire actually stood behind him... where she could block the doorway to the plastic playhouse. Then, after they sang all their songs, the kids started playtime while the grown-ups went to their corner of the room to discuss parenting stuff.

About 10 minutes into playtime, Claire decided she'd had enough. She found Stew with all the moms and plopped down in his lap. About five minutes later, Wyatt came running into the grown-up circle. He was screaming like a little girl and leaped into his mother's waiting arms. Following closely behind Wyatt, was Celia. In one hand, she was holding a red plastic ketchup dispenser. In the other, she held the matching yellow mustard one (no, I don't think either bottle contained any condiment materials). According to Judy, the teacher's aide, Celia took both bottles away from Wyatt. So, Celia's mom directed Celia to "give Wyatt one of the bottles." Celia responded by walking over the Wyatt with both bottles in hand. She gave him a disgusted look before she turned back toward her mom with a "I don't think so" look on her face. So, Celia's mom removed the ketchup bottle from Celia's hand and gave it to Wyatt, who then stopped crying. However, Celia then broke down and started wailing. Meanwhile, Claire sat quietly observing the entire ordeal before looking up at Stew and saying, "I think I like her..."

So, Celia and Claire will no doubt join forces in the future and take over the classroom. They're creating a new generation of "Mean Girls". And the term "Girl Power" will no longer be associated with a Eurotrash female singing troupe but will, instead, come to symbolize a couple of bad-ass toddler girls who plan to take on the world... one cry-baby boy at a time.

And now, I leave you with some pictures of Claire wearing a vest Momma used to wear way back in the early 1970's...