From a Mile Away

This morning our littlest had an appointment with a specialist at the hospital. Since we had landed an early time slot, the waiting room was empty except for another mom and her little boy. After signing in, we took a seat across the way from the other pair and it wasn't long before we began stealing little sideways glances toward each other, and then exchanged half-smiles and friendly nods.

Her little boy was doing his best to weasel his way out of his stroller and she gently reminded him to "sit up like a big boy." When the weaseling didn't yield results, he commenced spitting; to which she replied, a little less gently, "That doesn't bother me, you're only hurting yourself." Looking at me, she said, "He's such a handful, I just don't know how he can be so bad." And in the next breath, "How old is your little guy?"

"Fourteen months," I answered, "how about yours?" "He's just about nineteen months, he's been this way since he was nine months old. I got him when he was only a month old," she says with a sigh of - what I readily recognize as - exhaustion. "How long have you had yours?"

I knew I recognized a kindred spirit even before the conversation started. Yes, the fact that she and her little boy didn't match in the exact opposite way that me and my littlest don't match was a big clue. Honestly, however, I have stopped noticing, or am too tired or don't care enough, or am not observant, or am just oblivious to non-matching families anymore. Maybe that's what tipped off my new friend, who knows.

For the next half-hour, while our boys' eyes were being dilated and the waiting room began filling, we shared our hearts and our struggles. We exchanged gripes about the system and case workers. She talked about how hard it is to watch her little one go back and forth to visit with his birth family every weekend and know that reunification isn't any closer. That she knows so many of his challenging behaviors are due to his uncertainty. Her agency is trying to convince her to have the little boy moved to another home because they think "he is just too much for her to handle." "What do they think moving him is going to solve," she asked me rhetorically.

All the while we were talking my littlest was content to squirm around on my lap and in my arms; her little was pitching a fit in that stroller, taking off his shoes and socks, and still spitting. Every now and then, when he calmed down, she would take him out of the stroller and hold him or follow him around the waiting area, until he refused to listen, and then back to the stroller he went. Those people who had filled the waiting room did their little sideways glance thing, too. But no one else struck up a conversation with my friend; and in fact, several of them remarked to each other about that "out of control, loud kid in the stroller."

It's hard to explain how much I wanted to stand up and shout, "But you don't even KNOW!"
Or how much helplessness and isolation I felt on behalf of that little boy, and frustration and maybe embarrassment on behalf of his foster momma. Or how much of a connection I felt with my new friend as she just focused on loving her little one. And it's hard to explain how foster mommies seem to be able to spot each other from a mile away.