The Little Boy Who Cried Maxime

Elijah doesn’t love his Denver preschool. I think it’s partly because he feels guilty that his daddy has to shell out $600 a month so he can play with blocks. But Diana and I think it’s because he isn’t the King of The School, like he was in Evanston.

When we dropped him off in Illinois, the cry of “ELI!” would ring out. There’d be a fight for the chance to be the first to kiss his ring. Then they’d hoist him on their shoulders and shower him with cookies and Star Wars chocking hazards. And that was the teachers.

Now, when we drop him off, there’s a cry of, “Meh…” Eli usually just slumps into a tiny red chair in the corner and sighs.

The saddest part is Eli now tries to get out of going to school. He used to fake being sick and fake injuries. But now he’s taken to being fake bullied.

A few weeks ago, we asked him how school was and he said, “Maxine hit me and kicked me!”

My first response was, “Ew. A girl beat you up? What’s wrong with you? Um, I mean, it’s okay that a girl beat you up.”

He said, “Maxime is a boy.”

“Oh, MaxIME. That’s somehow better.”

I resisted the urge to buy him boxing gloves or engage in some other half assed sitcom self defense and gave him some “just ignore him” platitudes.

But the attacks persisted and increased in violence. “Maxime kicked and bit me. Maxime broke a chair over my head. Maxime stabbed me with a shiv honed from a toothbrush.”

Diana finally confronted his teachers, who we assumed were too jacked on Denver Medical Marijuana to notice the daily beatings.

They responded that there had been zero incidences between Maxime and Eli.

So we simply listen now to the daily play by play of how Maxime abused him and say, “That sucks that Maxime broke your arm off and beat you with the bloody end of it.”