mean girls

last night michael decided he didn't want to sleep. he was up until 3. he went from one bed to the other and back again. mark and i were looking forward to some alone time and didn't get it. michael woke up at 7 and came over to my bed and fell asleep until 9. so we did get a little sleep but not much.
lillian came back with big michael and megan and we went swimming. it is a nice pool and very warm. they left and lil was here with us briefly. it's funny how you want a break from your kids and when you get them back it's like they've been gone for longer than they have. anyway we went to the aunts house for dinner and the girls were playing. megan also has 2 other cousins visiting. one cousin, lauren, is 12 and has cancer so she didn't want to play much she would rather hang out with the adults but the other one, lindsey, was close in age and she only wanted to play with megan. every time lil would try to play they would run and hide. so this brought up the question: why are girls so mean to each other? what would be wrong with them playing together and having a good time? instead my daughter comes to me with tears in her eyes and says " mom, i don't think that girl likes me." i felt so badly for her. her and megan are the best of friends when it's just the 2 of them but if another kid is involved it seems to be the opposite. i remember being in 4th or 5th grade and all of a sudden my best friends decided they were no longer my friends. i was crushed. i didn't know what i did or why they didn't like me anymore. i still don't know what happened. it is one thing i don't know how to tell lil about. she won't understand what it's about. she'll just know she has hurt feelings and that she really wants to play with the older kids. she is a very sensitive little girl when it comes to that kind of stuff. i wanted to go over to the 2 girls that didn't want to play with lil and tell them how mean they were and make them feel really badly about what they had done. but i didn't i told lil she could play with whatever she wanted to and if they told her she couldn't to do it anyway. she has just as much right to play with them as they have to try and exclude her. my lillian is the best and i hope she realizes it one day.