The moment.

"I CANNOT find the color I am looking for!" Brandee sighed under her breath.
It was a lady like sigh, and not like the ones that I do where there is a slight whining involved and a sort of epileptic movement.

"Let's look again."

I move to stand beside her and survey the array of hair color. I am looking for a bigger package, since she wants highlights.

Down and to the left we found it. It took 5 seconds by the way.)

We turned to survey the makeup isles. The shelves were ridiculously bare. Mandy kept coming up to us and offering Brandee different shades of eyeshadows.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and an incredibly short, INCREDIBLY pregnant woman stood there.

"Hello." she said in a very soft voice. "My children used to go...I don't know if you remember us..."

"Foofy!" I said

She smiled. "YES!"

Foofy's name, of course was NOT foofy. It was a nickname for a child that could not say anything other then "Foof" when we met him.

Dawn named him foofy, and quite like the name she named ME (Beanie) It stuck.

The first time I saw him, he was in the toddler room at KinderCare, and I worked in the Two's room. I would notice him sitting by himself and staring off into space.

Each day I would watch him.

He interested me.

At this time, I had only been working at Kinder care for maybe 6 months. During one of my breaks I opened the door and called out his name.

He did not react.

I picked up a hardbound book and threw it at his feet.

He did not react.

I crawled across the floor and lay down in front of him. I whispered his name, I said his name, I sung his name.

He did not react.

The teacher who was in the room with him, told me "He will never do anything." in a very negative voice.

I picked him up and he turned his head.
His body was still against my hands. I lifted him up over my head and his eyes connected with mine.

He smiled.

"There you are." I whispered to him, and I fell in love.

I would visit him often until he finally became a part of my classroom. Brandee was with me by that time, and we enjoyed teaching Foofy how to color.

OKAY. We tried to teach him how to color, but he would rather climb the beds and lay on the very very top one.
He would move his hand between the beds and watch everything from there. (He wasn't supposed to be up there, but we would let him stay up there as long as we could.)

Sometimes during art, he would steal a pencap and walk to the wall. He would put the pencap on his finger and move it over the wall. For an hour.

We would sing to him, and he would smile at us. But mostly only when I lifted him above me. That is when we would connect. For a moment.

Brandee and I finally knew we had to approach his mom about his behavior. But how?
Our boss got us the paperwork for Sierra Vista and  they handled the rest. Foofy eventually left our classroom and joined a special school for Autistic Children.

His mom now stands before me and I hug her softly so I dont squish the baby that resides inside of her.

She pulls out her phone and her fingers are shaking. She shows us pictures of him walking in the autism walk, dressed up for halloween and playing baseball last summer.

He looks the same. Just bigger.

He is 7 years old now, and I can hardly believe it.

She is almost in tears as she thanks us for loving her son. That she has never ever forgotten us, and that we changed his life.

"I think of you both often. You made such an impact in our lives.We have put him in so many different schools, but no one was like you. Thank you." Her eyes wetten and her lips tremble as she reaches in for another hug.


And this folks, is the moment.

The moment when your heart fills with pride and love for a child that you have not seen in 5 years. The moment when you realize that loving a child that is not your own, matters greatly.