My heart in my throat...

We have four boys (10-13 years old) staying with us tonight. The Land of Lakes Nordic Boys choir (Elk River I believe mom...) from Minnesota gave a concert and we are hosting some of the boys. Every time I mentioned it to Andy he would tilt his head and look at me earnestly and tell me that he was excited about it because we would have friends staying with us and he "just wants lots of friends."
It puts my heart in my throat and brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I think this is partially because my boys are just getting to the age where they really start to actually make friends and our first real opportunity will be next year when we start preschool. It is not that I had trouble making friends... I was one of those kids who was clearly not popular but also clearly not at the bottom of the heap...I had a few close friends and a lot of acquaintances. It is just the first thing we are really encountering where I can encourage it but I can't really do it for him. He is just so earnest, sincere, genuine, and many other similar adjectives about it that my heart aches for him. He does fine when we go out places although he doesn't slip in with a group as easily as Doug does...but part of that is personality. Unless it comes to trains, Doug is perfectly happy slipping in and being a follower (so much so that I don't want him to follow somewhere/something he shouldn't) while Andy is much more independent in his play and clearly is a leader. It is so hard to think that there are times that my sweet Andy may get hurt or struggle and I have to let it happen so that he will learn and grow and know what to do when he encounters other problems.