There is a little girl in Mario’s class who is causing Mario much heartburn. 

Her name is Lily. 

And she is mean. 

I can’t believe I am saying that about a four-year old but I got a first-hand viewing when I dropped off Mario yesterday.  She was playing at the table that Mario loves (it lights up and you build on it).  Mario whispered to me “Lily is the new girl.  I want to play with her.”  How sweet, I thought.  When he approached her, she growled like a grizzly “Get away from me, Mario!”  He turned to me and frowned. 

My Caring Mario

I left after giving him advice to play with other friends.  At dinner last night, he brought Lily’s behavior up again.  “She is so mean to everyone, especially me. She poked me with a straw.”  We discussed how she may be sad because it was her first week at school and maybe that is why she is being mean (I should clarify that before such discussion, Jon was tempted to give a different piece of advice but he refrained!).  We talked about some books that we had read that showed a bully who became nice once someone paid attention to her.  I explained to Mario that maybe he just needs to continue to try to be nice to her. 

As we discussed how our days went at dinner tonight, Mario brought up Lily again.  “She hit Grant in the head and he hit his head against the table today.  That wasn’t nice of her.”  I asked if he told his teacher and he said that he did but Lily still acted mean.  I told him to steer clear of her for a while and then maybe she will want to play eventually (Maria chimed in with “Just go play with your girlfriend Jillian!”).  He shook his head in discouragement, and told us how he told Lily’s dad how mean she was being to him and all of his friends.  I asked Mario what her dad said and Mario told me he just walked away from him (maybe where she gets it!). 

I made sure that we read the Recess Queen again tonight.  Mario immediately compared Lily to Mean Jean, the main character of the book.  When Mean Jean learns to play with everyone at the end of the book, Mario observed “maybe Lily will learn how to do that, too.”  It is strange how obsessed he seems with this little girl but I think it is a good thing.  I think he truly cares about her and wants to see her happy and playing at school.  Either that, or he is ready to cuss her out and he is just prepping me so I understand when he does it!  No, not my boy….