The Sweeden Family

Wow! What a journey it has been. Little did we know how our lives would be changed during the month of October, 2006. It has been a time of joy, confusion, fear, exhilaration, praise, blessing, and exhaustion. It has been worth it all. Our month in Bogotá was fantastic and the help and support from the Colombian staff was outstanding. Julie also came to town during our stay in Bogotá, and she was a tremendous help. It was a reassuring feeling to have Julie there because we knew with her there everything would go just fine.

            

Upon returning to the states I stayed home from work for an extra week, and Daddy didn’t go back to work for about a month. Meanwhile, we were taking the kids to the doctor and enrolling the oldest two, Cristian (7) and María (6) into school. We live near a Spanish immersion school and feel that we would like to help them keep their language, so we enrolled them in that school. We believe that it has really helped with their transition in school. María is in Kindergarten and Cristian is in First grade. María is doing quite well in school and really enjoys her teacher. Cristian is a little behind in his basic Spanish skills (writing, alphabet recognition, and some numbers). He was really frustrated in the beginning, but he is now getting tutoring and is learning a lot fast. Brigit (4) is going to day care with a friend of ours who doesn’t know any Spanish, so she is really starting to understand a lot of English. Actually, all of our children are understanding a lot of English and beginning to use words and sometimes whole phrases in English. Aaron and I really don’t mind (we speak a little Spanish), but our family members keep wondering when the kids will be fluent English speakers. I think it is more frustrating for some of our family members. We keep telling them – “in time, be patient.” We also remind them that smiles, hugs and kisses say a lot even if they don’t know any Spanish.

Upon returning to the states the kids   kept talking about Halloween. So, we  returned on October 27^th and quickly  got costumes and did go trick or  treating with the kids and some friends. It was a blast and the kids had a lot of fun. Maria and Brigit were Tinker Bells or friends of Tinker Bell and Cristian was a Red Power Ranger. They were thrilled. The only problem the children told us was that it was very cold – “muy frío”. The weather is quite different here in Kansas City than it is in Bogotá and the children have been getting used to that too. However, we have had a lot of snow and snow days off from school this winter, and the children have really enjoyed the snow days. One day the snow was great packing snow, and they all went outside with Daddy and made a whole family of snowmen. They loved that. Mommy stayed in the house or on the porch to take pictures. It was a little cold for me. Then the holidays came, and this was a time filled with visitors and family. It was fun, and the children really enjoyed meeting everyone.

 It’s amazing to think that it has only been four months since we arrived back into the states with our children. It sometimes feels like they have been a part of us forever. We just fit together and truly believe this was all a part of God’s plan. We at first had our hearts set on a baby but felt God moving us in another direction, and we are so glad that we listened to His nudging. Now, don’t get me wrong every moment is not perfect, and it’s not all hugs, kisses and laughs, but every temper tantrum, nose bleed, middle-of-the-night wake up call from a sick child, longer-than-needs-to-be cry, and so on are all over taken by the fact that these children are our children, and they bring out in us a love that we have never experienced before. And, honestly, when I come home from work and my littlest runs up to me with outstretched arms and says, “mommy!” and my oldest says “mommy, how was your day?”, and my middle one gives me a hug and a kiss nothing else matters in this world. And then at night when we go to bed and give each other hugs and kisses and say good night, again, nothing else matters, and I am reminded about how blessed we are to now have a family of five with the most beautiful children in the world.

 

Happy Adopting!

Aaron, Renée, Cristian, María, and Brigit Sweeden

SweedenAR@aol.com