"What" is the mommy?

Well our forster daughter (S) and I were looking at pictures the other day. Most of them were of her, and it was absolutely adorable hearing her say "that's me" "that's me" "that's me" every time I turned to a new picture. Then we got to some other pictures. First was the one of my parents and she identified them as Nanny and Papa. (That's what my kids call them so she did the same when they came to visit.) Then we got through a lot of pictures of different people and children she had become friends with over the last year since she had been here and she identified all of them correctly.

We then got to a picture we had of her whole family. Her brothers and her, her mother and father were all in the picture. She looked at me proudly and said "Those are my friends".

I really didn't know what to say. She goes to visit with them once a week, and she calls her mother mommy, but she thinks that she is a friend. When we were looking at the pictures today, the same thing happened. I know I should probably say something, but I don't know what.

It is bad enough that she doesn't know she is gong to be leaving our home soon, ( the one she calls "my house")I don't want to make it even more difficult, but then how can you just let it slide. How often is it that a child doesn't know "what" a mommy is. She should know that her mother is an important part of her family, and yet she considers her to be a friend. She can't grow up thinking her mother is her friend. That will only lead to problems later.

I am just feeling kind of sad for her today knowing that she doesn't have a concept of what her family is or her home is or who her friends are......oh well, just another day in the life I guess. But I really don't like it. Tomorrow is the first visit in conjunction with reunification. I have such mixed feelings about that too.