Over the weekend, my family and I went over to a good friend’s house to hang out and have early dinner together.

Our friends have a daughter, Kate, that Sunny is close with; Kate is 2 ½ years older than Sunny. That day, when we went over there, Kate had two girlfriends over from school. I could tell Sunny was super excited to be hanging out with older girls and she was trying really hard to impress them with her wit and humor. At first it was sweet, but then her attempt to win them over was just turning into her behaving badly and acting like a total tripper.

It started with the trampoline. While my friend Dana and I watched her and the other girls jump around and show off their tricks, Sunny was trying to jump much higher than anyone else and act crazier. She was jumping up and down like she was trying out for a back up dancer part in a Beyoncé video. Deep down, I was rooting for her not embarrass herself, but they were sort of laughing at her as she really was spazzing out.

I asked her to get off the trampoline before someone got hurt and to join us for dinner. Dinner came along and it wasn’t much better. Sunny was acting like a clown and trying her hardest to make these girls laugh. She was making awful jokes and at one point I felt like I was reliving the movie Dinner For Schmucks.

I couldn’t bear to watch this any longer, so we left right after dinner.

That night, about an hour after I had put her down, I heard her crying from her room. I ran in as fast as I could and asked her what was wrong.

“My heart is broken, Mama.” Okay, anyone who’s a parent knows those words are the most awful, painful words a parent could hear. “What’s wrong”? I asked her, ready to kill anyone.

She said, “Those girls laughed at me. They made fun of me.” I asked her why. She said, “Because I told them a joke and they didn’t laugh and I went like this.” She then proceeded to make the GOOFIEST, funniest face I’ve ever seen. It took all my strength not to laugh.  I told her she was extraordinary, smart, special and cooler than those girls would ever be.

My poor baby.  She got a taste of what it can be like in the real word, beyond preschool. Guess I have to become her official bodyguard next year at her kindergarten and watch her back.