She about melted my heart today as she learned to play with older kids who also happened to be boys. They were swinging around on a Little Tykes slide cube and playing with a Little Tykes car. She was so interested in what they were doing, but she was just too little and she didn't know them at all, though they knew each other. To say that she was an outsider in their games is to put way too fine a point on it. I don't know if watching something like that touches other moms' hearts, but it sure broke mine. I just wanted to run over and help her get involved, but I knew that wouldn't do any good.

As I watched, one of them literally gave her a foot to the face entirely accidentally. She didn't cry. She stepped back and looked up at what he was doing, taking it all in and not fighting at all.

But the best part was when the boys were playing on the slide cube and she thought she'd take her turn with the car. The boys then decided (probably upon seeing her with the car, as kids will do) that they wanted to play with the car and they ran over and shoved her away from it and got in themselves. She looked at them without any anger in her voice and said, "Aren't we sharing?"

I love this child more than life itself.