I had some other posts whirling about in the festering cesspool of my mind, but they were all driven from the forefront yesterday when a furious ÜberElder arrived home with ÜberYounger and ÜberFriend Claire in tow, declaring, "Boer Brothers were bullying ÜberYounger!"

Of course "Boer Brothers" aren't their real names any more than ÜberElder or Younger are the names of my daughters, but they are white South Africans. In fact, "Boer" is a misnomer, since they are more British than Dutch, but that's neither here nor there. The pertinent facts are that Boer Elder is in 4th grade, and Boer Younger is in 3rd grade, ÜberYounger is in kindergarten, and they have escalated into physical violence toward her and her older sister after weeks or months of verbal taunts that ÜberElder hasn't reported until now. A day earlier, she reported the elder Boer spat on her. And yesterday... well, some background first.

My kids walk home amidst a throng of neighborhood kids, which include the Boers and the Italian-kids-who-live-across-from-the-park-whose-dad-owns-the-cigar-store. Younger and the youngest Italian daughter are in kindergarten together and play together all the time. They were playfully roughhousing when Younger got knocked to the ground and littlest Italian sat on her. They were at the back of the horde.

For reasons known only to them in their bully pea brains, the Boer brothers decided to come from the front of the line to the back, so that they could taunt Younger (this was after taunting Elder earlier, at the start of the walk), grab her arm while Italian girl sat on her, and poke her in the eye with her own hand. And call her a crybaby when she started to cry.

Let's get this straight. They had to wait until the kindergarten girl was laying prone on the ground, with another kindergarten girl on top of her, before they had the guts to manhandle her? You gotta hand it to those bullies. They sure are risk-adverse. ÜberElder's screaming at them to leave her little sister alone, and calling them the bullies they are was met with "laughing and sneering," according to Elder.

Upon some probing questions from me, it was revealed that verbal abuse by the Boer brothers toward my daughters is commonplace. If Elder tries to insult back, she is jeered. If she ignores them, she is "poked in the head with a stick." Elder hadn't mentioned any of this to me before yesterday. But picking on her little sister and poking her in the eye was the straw that broke Elder's back, it seems, leading her to spill her guts to me.

This will not stand, of course. Despite my Celtic Warrior Princess instinct to fly like a screaming banshee into the school and start lopping off the heads of the oppressors, I will icily follow school protocols.

If that doesn't work, THEN I will start lopping off heads.

By the way, when I did an image search for "bully" and found the picture that accompanies this story, I learned it came from Quaker Dave and the story HE did on bullying earlier this year. Thanks, Quaker Dave! Although I suppose you don't approve of my head-lopping strategy. I'll have to come up with something else.