Tender Hearted

Let me start with the story of Leslie Quan-
  Once upon a time when I was in the fourth grade, There was a group of five best friends- Me, Presley, Jenny, Rachel, and Leslie. I was the new comer, having just moved to California that year, but I slid into the group pretty seamlessly, and it was just perfect.  Until.
  Leslie Had a birthday party. Her parents got tickets to a cute princess play. Everyone got to dress up in their fancy dress, and go to the princess play, and eat out at a fancy restuarant in their fancy princess dress, and order whatever they wanted, and then sleep over and giggle all night.  Everyone but me that is.  See, Leslie's parents only got 6 tickets...one for Presley and Jenny and Rachel and Leslie and Mom and Dad. No Ashley. Of course I knew about it. Of course I heard all about it. In detail. I cried and cried. I cried the day the invitations went out, and every day until the party. I cried the night of the party even though my mom took me out and did something fun. I cried after the party when I heard how much fun they had. In detail. I was heart broken...but nothing compared to my mom.
   To this day I don't think I've ever seen her so angry.  I was never allowed to Call Leslie again. Leslie was never allowed at our house again. Leslie's name was poison to my mother's ears.  The mention of Leslie raised my mom's temperature by at least 20 degrees, causing flames to shoot out of her eyes and steam to pour from her ears. seriously.  And you know what? I'm pretty sure my mom shed more than few tears about that darn Leslie Quan and her darn birthday party.
To this day you CANNOT mention Leslie Quan to my mom if you want her to have an enjoyable afternoon.
(consider yourself warned...)

  I never did understand this seemingly unreasonable hatred of poor Leslie Quan.

Until now.

My poor little boy is old enough to have his tender little feelings hurt, but it is nothing compared to the hurt this mama bear is feeling.  3 things have happened recently that have left him sobbing and asking me why someone would do those things, and I don't have a good answer because they just shouldn't have been done.  We talk about Jesus and how he loved the people who put him on the cross, we talk about asking Heavenly Father to take our hurt feelings away, we talk about showing extra love to the people that hurt our feelings so we can always make good choices and never hurt others...all the while I want to shoot flames out of my ears and let steam poor from my ears, and give a few people a piece of my mind...and a knuckle sandwich to boot!

  I will tell you about one of those things here, because I did it, totally accidentally.  I explained the best I could, but tender 4 year old feelings are just that- tender 4 year old feelings. 
  Sunday night we were at my parents house to have dinner with my parents, and two siblings and their families.  Jaxon had done something naughty (no idea what it was...) so I took him inside for a 4 minute time out.  I set him on the front door rug and went back to the kitchen. Just then Jaxon's best little buddy Oakley let out a blood curdling scream in the backyard.  I turned to Dave and Said, "I'm sure glad Jaxon isn't out there!"  Why? Because I knew he wasn't the one responsible for causing the scream, and I knew the scream didn't come from him!
  4 minutes later I went to get Jaxon out of time out, only to find him sobbing silently into his hands.  (This is unlike Jaxon, because he's not really phased by timeout...)  I picked him up and he wouldn't look at me. I sat on the stairs with him on my lap and asked him what was wrong. He could barely get it out.

 He said, "Mommy, you said something so mean about me, and I heard you, and it's making me so so sad!!"

I said, "Jaxon! What did I say!?"

He said, "You told Daddy you were so glad I wasn't out there with you guys, and then you laughed. That makes me so sad when you don't want me with you!"

(seriously, stop a second here...wouldn't your heart just break? Mine did. In about a million little pieces.)

I did my very best to explain what I had actually said, and what I had meant, but I could tell he didn't quite know whether or not to believe me.

a couple other things have happened, (which I'm not going to repeat so don't bother asking) and I'm so sad for my little tender heart.  Ahhhh...it never gets any easier being a mother does it?