So you’re thinking of adopting an older child. Sure it will change your life, but aren’t you looking for a change anyway?

Two years ago I adopted my daughters from Ethiopia. One thing for sure is it changed my life. I’m busier, more knowledgeable about pop culture, learning all the information I somehow missed in elementary and middle school, more committed to success, more emotional. My life is fuller, richer, less peaceful, culturally enhanced and full of love.

When I started the adoption process, it was very much like getting pregnant. I didn’t know what the children coming into my life would be like. In fact, I thought maybe I was making a mistake in adopting older children, since there are plenty of stories about attachment disorder floating about. Several of my close friends even felt compelled to point these stories out to me. At the time, I didn’t know how incredibly lucky I would be. I ended up with two amazing kids.

My daughters are 10 and 12 years old now. Their names are Zehara and Jemila. They are good at nearly everything. Academically they are absolutely committed to studying. It is harder to make them stop studying than to get them to start. Zehara is in 5th grade getting all As, evaluated on grade level. Jemila is getting all As and Bs in 6th grade, evaluated on grade level in everything but language arts.

They are strong and athletic girls. This year Jemila has been on both the 6th grade cross-country and basketball teams. She has won a medal in nearly every track meet she has been in, and she is an excellent basketball player. Zehara isn’t on any team yet but is exceptional at soccer and basketball. The coaches already have their eyes on her for next year.

Both girls have beautiful singing voices and I love it when they sing Ethiopian songs in harmony. They know at least a hundred Ethiopian songs and still enjoy singing them. Both girls are wonderful dancers and have been in drama and dance performances. Zehara also plays the drum set with a rhythm true to her African roots.

They learned English quickly and now speak with little accent. I kind of miss the accent, though. They still speak Amharic well, which I strongly encourage except when they don’t want me to know what they are saying. Jemila still struggles with full comprehension of advanced language and Zehara gets tripped up by vowels in spelling and decoding when she reads.

So it sounds like I like to brag about my incredible daughters. It’s true, guilty as charged! In this case, though, I’m trying to also give prospective parents an idea of how wonderful adopting the older kid can be.

How did we get to this point? Did it just happen? Are Jemila and Zehara just exceptional kids? I don’t think that is all of it. It took a lot of work initially and still takes focused energy. But seeing the results makes it all worthwhile.

The first year was hard and took all my focus. It was like being in a child development movie but the movie was playing in fast-forward.

The first few months were similar to raising toddlers. Keeping them safe around cars, struggling at the supermarket when they wanted everything on the shelf, keeping them from reaching into the VCR to get the tape out. Safety and explaining new things was a big deal.

Also their expectations of what life would be like in America versus what I thought would be exciting to them was not exactly what any of us expected. They thought that in America they could have anything they wanted and pretty much do anything they wanted. For example, Zehara told me she thought she would have a thousand dolls in America. Jemila thought we would buy her a new pair of shoes when hers got dirty.

I thought they would be excited about having a nice bedroom and their own bicycles. Well, they were, but it was an expectation not a “wow!” experience.

On the other hand, they were excited about school from the beginning. The hardest thing about school was to get them to relax about homework. School was harder for Jemila than for Zehara because Jemila was older and started out in a split 4th/5th grade instead of 3rd. She wanted to catch up immediately with the other kids in her class. She would spend hours working on her homework every night, which meant I would spend hours helping her because she couldn’t understand the work without help.

Another challenge was feeding them. They hated American food at first. It was much too bland for them. I also think they resisted liking American food as a way to hold on to Ethiopia a little longer. Luckily we had access to some Ethiopian restaurants. We took awaze (a paste we made with berebere, oil, salt and water) everywhere we went. Somehow smearing American food with Ethiopian spices made it more palatable for them.

So you must be asking, “Sounds like a lot of work and maybe some spoiled kids. What’s life like now?”

Life now is pretty much like living with any 10 and 12 year old, except maybe more interesting. The girls handle themselves well in playing and they have lots of friends. I trust their ability to walk home after school and to go by themselves to the community center across from their school to swim or play basketball.

They help with chores like vacuuming, washing dishes and bringing down their laundry and sorting it. Of course, they would rather play than help but they don’t really mind helping out.

They are kind and considerate of others. Their basic value structure is good. They struggle with the pressures of materialism, peer pressure and real life versus media norms, like most kids living in this country. They are not afraid to talk about these challenges with adults and they want to make the right choices.

Maybe one of the most interesting things to me is that our house is now multi-cultural. We have two languages, foods from two cultures (actually we all like foods from many cultures), more holidays to celebrate, and a wide circle of friends. We have found Ethiopians who want to help the girls stay connected to their Ethiopian heritage and keep their language. In fact we even know one man who actually worked with their birth father in Ethiopia. He and his family are a great help to us.

Adopting an older child isn’t like adopting a baby that you mold from the start. Instead it is a great adventure of joining the lives of distinct human beings, bringing texture and depth to each other’s lives. So if you’re still thinking of adopting an older child, your life will be probably be changed forever. Mine is for sure and I wouldn’t change it for the world.