Last night Addi was super quiet and grumpy. When I got home from work and I tried to talk to her she made the point of ignoring me. Hmmm, a bit strange, but we roll with it. Then when she wouldn't set the table and I got after her she blew up and stormed upstairs to her room in a huff. Hmmm again. Obviously this is not about setting the table.

Jess, with her infinite "Mom Wisdom" told me to go upstairs and talk to her. It turns out that she had a rough day and one of her friends was being mean to her and most of the other girls in class went along with her. They were passing notes about her and all the things that 9 year olds do to hurt each other. Poor kid, she was just sobbing. The worst part is she said "it's just that I don't have many friends here and I feel so alone." Doesn't that just break your heart?

We talked through it and she came down to eat dinner. Unfortunately, this behavior is not isolated to 3rd graders and I'm fairly we'll have more tears in our future. :(

On a completely un-related note, Henry *almost* beat me at chess last night. We play quite a bit and he's pretty good, but to date, he has never beat me and he wants to so badly. After a few careless moves from me early on I had to focus hard and fight him to a draw. It doesn't sound like much but this was quite an exciting moment for him and he kept yelling his status to Jess in the other room. Someday he'll get me, and at this rate it's likely to be soon ...

Jess and Truman went shopping for birthday party supplies for his 5 year party yesterday. He's beyond excited. The theme is "super hero dinosaurs" which eloquently combines his two favorite subjects.

On an unrelated note, with all the terror activity in Western Europe at the moment the security at the kids' school has stepped up quite a bit. There are Madrid police milling around the school also. It's good to see they are taking security seriously, but also a sad reminder of the times we live in.