My 3 year old today was playing independently at softplay (never happens - I'm always dragged in!) and I watched as he was playing with other kids and it felt like a proper proud moment and like I was watching him grow up in front of my eyes.
The kids he was playing with left and I saw him go up to 2 older boys (guessing between 8-10) and say "Hi friends, can I play with you?" They laughed and walked away. He was following them calling out "friends? Friends? Come back" I tried to distract him and he said he was playing with his friends. He was at the top so I wasn't there to turn him away and ye went up again and asked to play with them and they told him to go away and I don't know if it's pregnancy hormones but it broke my heart a bit, I teared up. It was just my first time seeing him as this independent little boy putting himself out there and also the first time I'd seen him sort of get rejected by someone and it just felt really vulnerable and made me want to wrap him in bubble wrap and never let him out my arms!
God, I thought making sure he didn't break himself was the worst part of parenting but this is a whole side of parenting I hadn't thought about - it's like wearing your heart outside your body isn't it?!