The Dorky Kid on the Playground

Tonight while she was getting ready for bed, McKenzie started telling me her sad tale about life on the playground. She's never been one to have a ton of friends. She usually has one or two that she just really loves. But she had a few little friends last year and one on again, off againer that seemed to really matter to her. Apparantly there's all sorts of sadness and difficulty happening as a result of some sort of jumproping club and mean girls. Most of you have witnessed my embarrassing lack of coordination, which sadly Kenzie has inherited. This does not make one popular in the jumproping club apparantly. Basically its a long, tragic tale and at the heart of it is this poor little girl who doesn't really have a lot of friends and is terribly shy and self aware and I think maybe getting picked on a little. In short she's me. McKenzie's story is the story of my entire childhood. I was the sad, dork at school with one friend only. And if that friend was gone one day or played with someone else, well my day was wrecked. I didn't really move much past this one friend scenario until 10th grade. I tried to reassure her that mommy only had one friend total until 5th grade. Surprisingly this did not help. I thought maybe she'd snort and make a face like "Geez mom even I have more friends than that," but all she said was "who Nikki?" I tried to give her advice, but I feel wildly underqualified. Making new friends has never been my best skill. I went the "well you have to deal with mean people your whole life and this is a great learning experience" route"but that fell short too. Hailey, who I was so worried about sitting all alone on the bus, apparantly jumps on and has a slew of friends to sit with. She doesn't want to sit by her sister, I thought it would be the other way around. My heart aches for McKenzie. I know her pain but I don't know what to do. I want to go down to that school and say: "Hey you bratty little girls. She'll get better at jumprope if you just let her try. McKenzie is sweet and smart and loyal and way cuter than all of you so you just better be her friend or you're missing out." (Pretty sure that wouldn't go over too well.) I know she has to fight her own battles but man it sucks being the dorky kid at school.