There's a New US Citizen in the house!

Look what came in the mail today! Simon's Certificate of Citizenship. We were expecting it to take about 5 months and it took about 2 months. We're excited to have this step behind us. Now, we just need to update his information with Social Security and then, we are done with paperchasing for Simon. From this point forward, we just need to submit yearly updates about how Simon is doing to our agency who will send the updates back to Ethiopia. We are excited that Simon is a US Citizen -- it will open doors for him and give him many privileges. But it's also bittersweet. His Ethiopian heritage was all that he brought with him when he joined our family. Of course, he has many, many wonderful character qualities that can never be taken away from him -- he is funny, smart, energetic, tenacious, kind, and loving -- but there's something a little bit sad for me about changing his status from Ethiopian to American. I feel like we've taken away something that with different circumstances, he would have had his whole life. I wonder what he'll have to say about this some day. And believe me, he is a smart cookie and I'm confident he WILL have an opinion about his adoption, citizenship, etc! But for now, we will continue to teach him about his beautiful first country and try to raise him to have pride and respect for both his first and second homelands. A challenge and privilege that Mark and I have both embraced.