Student of the week!

It is great fun to be student of the week! I have found too that it can be a little bit of a rough time for my kids that were not mine at birth. This weekend as we gathered photos of Araya to put up for his "student of the week" area in the classroom, I felt a sense of sadness. I must say first of all that all of my kids have had the same teacher for 4th grade, Mrs. Aleckson, she is wonderful and sensitive to the fact that we don't have a lot of past things to share or photos to post. We obviously focused on the past 4 1/2 months, but as we went through the pictures on the computer and he picked out the ones that we should print, I realized that he wasn't all that "into" doing this. I have 2 pictures of Seble, Syfah and Araya together, the day they were brought to the orphanage. He was positive those were not pictures he wanted his class to see, I was feeling like "what?" so cute, so sweet. I had to process a little bit about why? It should have been obvious to me. Those pictures that I see of cute, happy looking kids, hold extreme sadness. It was a couple days later that they were separated and to not be together again under the same roof until 6 years later. Those pictures, which I am thrilled to have are not ones that Seble, Syfah and Araya enjoy looking at. Oh, how I wish I could have a few more pictures or a few more conversations about their past. Every once in a while I will get a comment or two and it catches me, I want to know what I missed and then I think, no I don't....too much grief that my kids had to endure. Seble often talks of the day her mom was taken from the home and brought to the hospital to die, she said she remembers her screaming that she didn't want to leave her kids. I can't imagine anything worse. They never saw her again.......When we were coming home from Araya's last doctor appointment at the U of M, he asked me, " Mom, why doctor so much?" I said, "we want you to stay healthy and strong" He said, "Because I have HIV?" "yes" I said. He only knows that HIV is something but he is not sure what, he said "many of my friends died mom." As he proceeded to tell me some of their names....I felt the sadness at the thought of not having him in my car next to me. Araya lost friends to the terrible disease that we see so much progress in. I guess my purpose in writing tonight is that I never thought that I would ever be working on "student of the week" stuff with Araya, I had given up on him ever joining us. It was about 1 year ago that we started the process full speed ahead for Araya to join us. I am thankful tonight that we had friends and family that encouraged us. I am also thankful to the many friends and family who have decided to pursue adoptions...November is National Adoption Month.

When you are student of the week, everyone in the class gets to write something about you...here are a few...

Friendly, good runner, good at drawing, sweet, good at games, great smile...my favorite..."laughs like his Dad!" Thanks Mrs. Wold!!