"I'm a nice boy..."

Many times I post happy little stories on my blog that I want to remember and cherish always.  If you want to do nothing on my blog but read stories such as those, you may want to click away from this post. This is a tale of heart break, and it makes me want to cry just thinking about it.  At the same time, I see the sweet little heart of my little boy shining & lining the gray cloud that is this story, so I have decided to go ahead and document it.

A couple weeks ago we were at a local park complete with little crooked houses, a sandbox, a mini golf area, and a tree house.  Julian, Ella Grace and I were playing there all by ourselves, when a sweet little girl came over and asked if she could play with us.  "Of course!" I said, and she stepped into the sandbox. I asked her how old she was and she informed us she was five.  Julian likes little girls around this age because he has three girl cousins all around this age and he absolutely ADORES them, and the feeling is mutual. (Last time we left their house, the girls' mother --my sister-in-law-- commented as the girls all hung on Julian and doted on his every move "he is like a celebrity at our house!")

Julian, the little girl, Ella Grace, and I went into a crooked house and my baby boy and his new friend made me some food. Then the little girl ran out and said "oh! I've got to go to the grocery store!" she then ran up the tree house, with Julian following close behind echoing "I've got to go to the grocery store!"  Then the little girl ran out of the tree house and said "I've got to go to work!" Again, Julian echoed her and went off to work with his new friend.

Remember, this girl has 3 years on my son, so she was running quite a bit faster than my toddling little Julian.  Soon she put together that this little boy must have been chasing her (when really he was just trying to keep up with her), and soon another little girl joined in with her and the two of them ran away from my sweet baby boy. They went into a crooked house, and Julian caught up to them and tried to come in, but the girls were pushing on the door so he couldn't get in, laughing hysterically. Then they ran out, leaving Julian in the dust, & scrambling to keep up. He couldn't understand why they wouldn't let him play. As he ran after them, he plead so sadly in his little 2-year-old voice  

"but I'm a nice boy! I'm a nice boy!"  

By this time I was in tears (behind my sunglasses).  One girl's mom was completely oblivious and the other looked at me and laughed and said "oh, they think it's a game!" I gave out a little chuckle to try and hide how completely heartbreaking this was for me, and hurriedly tried to distract my son. "Julian! Let's go to the gym! Let's go to Kids' Club!" and "Julian! Come play with me! Come play with Ella Grace!" Julian turned to me with tears in his eyes and yelled "but I wanna play with those girls!"

My sweet boy's feelings were legitimately hurt. That hurt so badly.  It was the first time I've seen his feelings hurt/ him be flat-out rejected and it truly crushed me.  Oh, my sweet boy.  We soon were see-sawing without a care in the world, and soon after did make it over to my gym's Kids' Club, where he had a great time.  But if something like that never happened again, it would be too soon.

I am just so glad he knows who he is...

He is a nice boy.