I know, I know. I haven’t shared too many details since we got home. It just seems like we have been so busy! So, here is a very brief briefing for those of you I have spoken to yet.
We were very blessed to be able to have Kwasi and his foster mother stay with us during our entire stay. Legally, he is our son and we could have just taken him for those days, but we didn’t want to disrupt his life completely or traumatize him unnecessarily so, we rented a 2 bedroom house (for cheaper than a single hotel room FYI) and had him stay with his foster mother. It worked out great! Yes, his foster mother speaks English so, we did not have a translator.
Our most commonly asked questions:
Q: Kwasi? Coen? What WILL you call him?
A: We spent 4 1/2 days calling him Kwasi and it is the name that he has used for a year and a half even though it has always been his middle name so, we’ll likely continue to call him Kwasi when he gets here. Then again, maybe we’ll call him Coen Kwasi and slowly lose the Kwasi… So, I guess feel free to call him either one until we figure out what he thinks about it all.
Q: Does he speak English?
A: He doesn’t “speak” much of anything since he’s 18 months, but he actually says more than Carter did at 18 months. While we were there he waved and said “bye-bye” and also copied us on a few other words. Just randomly he would repeat something someone said.
Q: How did he interact with you?
A: The first 24 hours we can to watch him from across the room, but then he slowly got used to us and by the 2nd to last day, he was walking into our room in the morning to say hello and letting us pick him up, hold him, tickle him and play with him. He even cried for daddy when we left him to nap while we went to deliver donations to a couple of orphanages.
Having patience has it's rewards. The closer to Kwasi's arrival gets, my excitement for all of us grows. Such a sweet little guy.