Reality check

Today Axel and I had a dose of reality spat at us. Literally. This is Eastern Europe, where kids "like him" aren't accepted by society in general. I know this. I've read about it plenty. I should not be shocked when I see it in real life, right? I don't think there is a way to prepare for this.

Axel and I take two, sometimes three long walks every day. I use the walks to break up our days spent in the hotel room. He's now figured out at a certain point that if he gets his shoes and jacket on, I might just take him out. (he's also figured out that if he's naughty Mama will put on her "mad mama" look, do an about face and march him right back to the hotel, even if we've only gone 30 feet!)

Today I took him into the city center. It's the furthest I've taken him without a behavior problem, and the first time I've taken him in that general direction without a problem as well!

We had turned to head back toward the hotel, and I had just asked him if he wanted to eat. When I looked back up, I noticed a group of teenage boys coming toward us. They were just walking along the sidewalk like everyone else, nothing unusual. They were all dressed nice since it was the time of day the kids were just getting out of school. Two of the boys were eating hamburgers from a stand just down the street.

As they approached us, and were about 20 feet away, I noticed them looking at Axel and talking kind of excitedly. It was obvious they were talking about Axel. As they passed us, one boy turned and spit at Axel!!!!

OMG! I was FURIOUS!!! I wanted to turn and SCREAM at him, and put my hands on his throat! And DEMAND that he take me to his mother so I can tell her what her child has done!

But I didn't.

I couldn't.

I couldn't protect my child this time.

I couldn't stand up for him.

That boy got away with it.

I bent my head down and looked at Axel, who was looking at me very confused. I wiped the spit off his sleeve with my jacket and we kept walking.

All I could think about was my trying to scream at the kid with my ZERO language skills here, and ending up in a jail cell because here's an American woman screaming hysterical English at an innocent teenage boy, while dragging a child who speaks some type of martian/chinese and she doesn't have any papers to explain why she has this boy!

Yeah, being in a jail cell here would be a bad thing.

I cannot explain to you how SICK I felt when I heard that boy spit. Surely he was just spitting in general, not AT Axel. I couldn't believe I was actually seeing someone's spit on the sleeve of my child. The very child who does nothing but laugh and smile all day long, who although he's been taken from the only life he knows has only cried once for about 2 seconds then CAME TO ME for a hug and cuddle.

HOW could they do that? HOW??????? What makes teenagers like that? Did their parents teach them that? This culture is soooo different. The GALL to do that with me RIGHT THERE????

And there are the eyes of my child, wondering why someone has just spat on him, and I have no way to explain.

I prayed that God would do something to that boy's heart. And in a second I knew that 20 years from now this day will come back to him. The day he will hold his newborn child and hear the words so many of us have heard, "The tests have come back, your child has......" And in that very moment, that boy now a man and father will remember the day he spat on the little boy in blue. It is in that very moment his heart will change.

Oh, how I can't wait to get him home. Where there is acceptance, and inclusion, and LIFE.