I can't fall asleep tonight.  I'm too busy being beat up by the pains of motherhood.  Today, I witnessed my little boy get rejected twice, three times. . .  We don't often get out to play with the neighbor kids just yet.  I'm usually cleaning, cooking or nursing or otherwise tending to an infant (hopefully that part of the problem will soon begin to phase out a bit).  Gordon, who is my social bee, spends quite a bit of time begging to go out and play with the other kids.  He will literally sit by the window and give me "kid counts" as I nurse sometimes.  "Mom, there's three kids outside.  Can we go outside and play with them?"  It seems I'm always saying no and offering the backyard where I feel a little (though not much) safer letting him and Teeny play somewhat unattended.  He'd rather have the kids.

So, today, I did what I end up doing like once a week.  I mentally dismissed my lack of a menu and grocery list for the evenings shopping trip, shrugged my shoulders at dinner, and took the kids out to play.

First, there were the two older boys.  Somehow Gordon managed to follow them to another yard -- he finds the older kids quite amusing and entertaining -- where I heard them telling him and another boy to go away.  They were so anxious to get rid of their little tag-alongs that they began threatening to take the life of Santa Claus (to which one smart little guy replied, "It's not even Christmas.  Santa isn't coming yet.").  Gordon left them, walked somberly up to me; and I was preparing myself to respond to his fears for Santa's life when I came up against an even harder line, "Mommy, those boys don't like me."  I tried to explain that it wasn't that the boys didn't like him, they just had big boy things they wanted to do.  I then told him to play with the kids his own age.

So, he tried to get in on a game of soccer with a couple of twins his age.  They WOULD NOT let him in!  He kept looking at me like, "I want to play too."  Then he asked if he could go get his own toy to play with.  I went with him to the house to make sure he picked a toy that he could share and that would pose no drama if it got lost or broken outside.  He chose some matchbox cars and trucks which he willingly shared with all those kids who rejected him.

And how did they repay this kindness?  When they took up the soccer ball again, and he tried to get in on the game again, they rejected him again.  I told Gordon to get another ball and play kick with Teeny, which he tried to do; but, Teeny not yet at the age of "understanding cooperative play," pitched a bit of a fit and went and found another toy.  Rejected by his own sister.

It was so bad that, when I said it was time to go, he quickly picked up his toys and headed home.  This NEVER happens.

So, when my head hit the pillow tonight, and I had nothing to do but think, all this came whirling back through my mind.  I began to cry in sheer pain for my child.  How lonely he must have felt -- how terribly disappointed and sad and lonely.  And then, I remembered the worst part.  When we got back in, I needed to finish my grocery list, feed a baby, and figure out dinner in like 30 minutes.  I was frazzled and had a splitting head ache and. . . I rejected Gordon.  While he ran around playing in the living room, asking questions, getting loud, bugging his sister, irritating me. . . I responded sharply with, "Go downstairs!  Get, get out of here.  I have things I've got to do.  I said go now." 

How could I?  How on earth could I do that?  He came home probably thinking (on some level) that he was going to leave all those kids who didn't like him and didn't want him around and go home to the place where he knew he would be loved and where he had a mommy who wanted him around.  He didn't cry, but he didn't want to go downstairs to play.  He never mentioned it, but I can't believe it didn't hurt him at least a little to feel abandoned, rejected by his mommy -- to feel alone in his own home.

So, I'm up past midnight tonight feeling sheer pain, agony and an incredible amount of guilt.  What does a mother do with that?  At 12:30am?  She confesses her sin to God, she prays that she never forgets the look on her son's face and that line, "They don't like me," and she determines to NEVER under ANY circumstance EVER tell her little boy to "Get out of here" EVER AGAIN.