I hate to tell you this, but...

That's how things started the other day as I dropped my daughter off at preschool.  One of the other mom's hunted me down in the parking lot.  She actually waited for me in her car, flagged me down and told me this little diddy about my son.  She starts off with: "I hate to tell you this but..." 

Here's some background first--our kids are in the same grades.  She has two little girls, one if first grade with Alex and the other in preschool with Liz.  As it turns out, she's a super nice mom and I have only good things to say about her.  I know, I know, you can pick your jaws up now.  Anyway, after she tracks me down, she tells me that her daughter found my son wandering around the playground alone (not at all unusual for him, actually its fairly common and I would crap my pants if he were doing anything else) but he was crying.  Alone and crying.  She told me her daughter asked what was wrong and Alex said "no one wants to play with me."  Her daughter then offered to play with him and they played a spy game according to Alex's rules. 

So there we were, standing in the preschool parking lot and I learn how good her kiddo is and how she totally helped out my son.  Like I said--she's a good mom and I can say nothing bad about her.  And yes, I really do want to adopt her daughter.  Anyway, she was telling me this, not to go on about how kind her daughter was, but out of genuine concern for my son.  I wasn't sure how to feel.  I did think it was funny that they played a game according to 'his rules' at first but then came to the quick conclusion that that's probably half the problem.  I was disgusted that my kid was alone and crying his eyes out in plain sight of his para and teacher, I later find out, and thankful beyond words that there others out there looking after my kiddo. 

Needless to say I got home and fired off an e-mail to his resource teacher.  It was filled with a little bit of disgust, a fair amount of concern and loaded with my understanding that it would never happen again.  I started it with "I hate to tell you this but..."