Getting back to routine

Its late and I can't sleep so this will probably be pretty random...

The holidays are over. Today was park day with the home school group and it went really well. The forecast was for rain but it didn't rain and actually it hasn't started raining yet at all. Next week MOPS starts again and bible study. I am thinking about going to the Tuesday morning woman's bible study at church. I'm worried it will be too much though so I am praying about it. We still are doing the Tuesday evening bible study as a family and I am doing the bible study with the home school group.

They sang happy birthday to Elijah today at the park and to the other kids with January birthdays. He got to pick a toy out of the birthday basket so he was happy. Every time we go and they sing happy birthday to the kids with birthdays he has asked why he can't get a toy too so it was nice that it was finally his turn. I remember how it seemed to be sooo long between birthdays when I was young. A year seemed like forever. Now its no time at all and time really does seem to fly by. I remember my great-grandma telling me that I would see it that way when I got older and I didn't really believe her at the time but of course she was right.

Elijah seemed to have a really good time at the park today. He got to take his new scooter that he got for Christmas and his new purple light saber. He ran around for hours with the other kids and as I already mentioned he celebrated his birthday so as we were leaving I asked if he had fun with his friends fully expecting him to go on and on about all the fun stuff but instead he told me about one kid that at some point during the day called him a loser. He said that made him cry. I never saw him crying over a name calling incident today. He did accidentally get hit with a light saber once and he cried and I comforted him but that was all I saw. Elijah would not let go of this one incident with the kid calling him a loser. He dwelled on it all afternoon. Elijah is so very sensitive. I reminded him of all the positive things that happened such as his friend Jacob who was so happy to see him and even brought Elijah a present just because. Elijah still dwelled on the "loser" incident though and when Doug came home he immediately told him about being called a loser. I wish he would focus on the good stuff instead of the bad stuff but I guess that is human nature. God does so many wonderful things for us and we still wish for more and complain that things aren't perfect.

As a mother I am trying to figure out where my responsibility comes into play in playground situations. Do I say something to kids that aren't being nice or do I let them work it for themselves? "Loser" certainly isn't the worst thing to be called and isn't profanity but its not uplifting and isn't a label anyone would want to have. Kids do that kind of thing though, its normal. I don't want to be too overly protective. Elijah does need a thicker skin and will have to learn not to get upset over these little incidents. I don't know. Most of the kids in the home school group are extremely nice kids so Elijah will have an easier time in life if we continue homeschooling. I remember being made fun of in school growing up which I'm sure everyone goes through at some point but it really impacted my self-esteem and I want to protect Elijah from that as much as possible but I also don't want to do a disservice to him by overprotecting him so that he can't deal with the times he comes into contact with less than friendly people in life.