Ben needs his squirrel back

Last night David received an unsual telephone call. He answered and there was silence on the other end. David said "Hello, hello." Finally a little voice answered. The voice was very timid, and it took some coaxing from David to get the little boy to talk. It was Ben, one of Leo's classmates. Leo and Ben are in a combined kindergarten and first grade Montessori class at school, and Ben is a kindergartener while Leo is a "big kid" first grader. Ben desperately wants to be Leo's friend, and gave Leo a Bakugan, the latest Japanese toy craze for the young set. I thought that it might have been an exchange and didn't think much about it, but it turns out that Ben gave it to Leo so that Leo would be his friend. Then Ben gave Leo a stuffed squirrel with a nut in its hand. It turns out that the squirrel is Ben's favorite toy, and he was very sad without it, to the point of crying on the phone when he called to ask for it back. How sad is that, for a 5 year old to give away his favorite toy so that another kid will be his friend? If they were teens I'd wonder if Ben was gay and had a crush on Leo, but I'm not going to think about that. I talked to Leo about Ben at breakfast, trying to help him understand how much Ben wants to be his friend, but I'm not sure that Leo really understood. So I'm going to do what I can to help Ben and Leo be friends by setting up a "play date" for them this weekend if we can. I empathize with Ben, since I didn't have many friends growing up and would have done just about anything to have more. I took a photo of the squirrel and will try to post it in the next few days.