Gotcha Day is ten months behind us and a lot has changed. First and foremost, Daniel is a full blown toddler. He runs. He plays. He talks. His personality shines more brightly each day and the pace of his learning has increased ten fold.
As adoptive parents, it's important to us for Daniel to remain connected to his birth country Colombia. We didn't change his name. We speak Spanish at the house. We attended Novenas during Christmas. We cook arepas and arroz con pollo. We listen to Colombian music and translate English books into Spanish while reading to him before bed time.
We're not abnormal. Many parents of Internationally adopted children do the same type of things. Why? It's because a child's native country is a part of him or her and should be celebrated and encouraged rather than to pretend otherwise. When we've explained our desire for Daniel to speak Spanish, for example, we've had more than one person make comments as though we're in denial of the enevitble and I feel as though I have to defend or explain our rationale.
The opposite is true. We want him to be bilingual, but Daniel is exposed to English so much that he is already displaying a preference toward it and could lose Spanish completely if we weren't on constant vigil. Here's a great example of a frequent exchange he and I have.
"Up," he exclaims to me with his arms outstretched.
"No entiendo," I reply.
"Arriba," he says, and I pick him up.
So despite the fact Claudia is from Colombia, we have begun to realize how difficult it will be for us to raise a Colombian in the United States. We admit, on the other hand, that we are blessed to be able to speak with him in his native language at all since many parents of adopted children don't have that resource.
I'm not admitting defeat, only acknowledging the challenge. Our culture has some great aspects, but so does Colombia and we want Daniel to have the best of both worlds.
