We arrived at Hannah’s Hope about 8:00 a.m. I was felling very nervous! What was this meeting going to be like?!?!?! We walked over to house #6 and into the downstairs part, around the corner to the right and into the small bedroom. A little boy in a red shirt and baseball cap was sitting at a small table eating breakfast. I just wanted to stare at this cute little boy, but we introduced ourselves to him and Carlos gave us a shy smile. He was not all that interested in his breakfast so his special mom took it away. Both Stephen and I felt pretty odd at first. We were not sure what to do or say and with our limited Spanish the saying part was really hard. But thankfully kids play the same in any language and soon enough we were on the floor playing blocks and cars with Carlos.
From time to time we would overwhelm him or perhaps the newness of the situation I’m not sure, but he would stop playing and scoot over to his Special Mom. She would encourage him and we would engage him again. Carlos really loved this big pink Barbie car. He talked away about “grande carro”. I’m sure he said other things too, we just were not sure what he was saying! His Special Mom said that he was doing really well and was a very smart little boy. She said he was very interested in figuring out how all the toys worked even though he probably never played with toys before and definitely never this many options. That first day we spent with Carlos, he was a little shy and uncertain, but that was quite expected as he had not yet been at Hannah’s Hope for even a full day. I cannot imagine the confusion he must have been feeling. Why was he here? Where was his birthfamily? Who were these white people?
House of Smooches 