Missing a First Love

Yesterday my son had to say good bye to his first love. He and Farm Friend have been in day care for 5 full years - nearly their whole lives! Every day they played together, ended the day with a hug and looked forward to the next day. That era ended yesterday.

Let me set the scene. There are about 11 little kids running around in the back yard, we had just made kickball ice cream (more about that later), there are a couple of mom's there to pick up their kids. I say "Ok, time for us to go."  A 2nd grader accidently runs over Berry Princess - tears and tears. Now I'm distracted.

I look up to see Early Bird and Farm Friend giving each other the normal every day hug. Early Bird turns to leave and starts to walk toward the van. Farm Friend starts to go back to playing. Then they both realize that they won't see each other again, so they turn and run back to each other and hold hands. One of them says, "When will I see you again?" And they both shrug their shoulders and cock their heads. And give each other hug. I can see tears building up in both of their eyes - at least I think so b/c I had tears too! And we walk the long walk toward the van.

We have a 10 min drive until we get home. Early looked out the window for the entire drive home and kept sniffling. Berry Princess asked him several times, "What's wong?" He couldn't even talk about it. We get home and he goes over to the swingset and swings for about 15 minutes. He came in still sniffling and teary-eyed. He found his brand new transformer, took it down the stairs to play with it. Periodically we still heard some sniffles. Poor guy really missed his friend!