Isa

Picking Isa up at the airport

Let me tell you about having an exchange student.  It's not an easy decision.  When your family decides to host an exchange student, you quickly have to find a place for them to sleep and stay.  You have to ask your children if they'll share a room for six months (they immediately will say yes).  The kids' bathroom will, of course, need remodeling, so you enlist your entire extended family to help with the project.  They willingly oblige and help immensely, even after your husband breaks his collar bone in a bicycle accident four weeks before the exchange student arrives.  You think of all of the things you'll take the student to see and do while they're in Washington.  You make lists, plans, and dreams.  You worry about what it means to bring in a stranger to live with you for nearly six months.  What is it like to parent a teenager, especially when they're not yours?  What if she's homesick?  What if she never talks?  What if she thinks we're supremely uncool?  What if she never wants to play with the kids?  What if, what if, what if.

Art by Zoë

Games, games, games, S

And then she arrives.  And it is so crystal clear immediately that she is THE ONE.  She lets the kids help her unpack her suitcase.  She plays Peteca in the backyard with supreme patience.  She wakes up with a smile, grabs a cup of coffee, and flops on the floor to wrestle or play a game with your children.  This is within days of being with your family.

Obligatory first day of school photo

She starts school and lets you take the traditional first day of school photo on the porch AND follow her to the school bus stop to take more pictures.  She plays volleyball for school and you get to watch her play and feel such pride in her grit and hard work on and off the court (often late into the night doing homework for hours after practice is over).  Your husband helps her with her physics and calculus.  They stand in the kitchen, leaning over the counter, heads together, figuring out a problem.  When she comes home from school or practice she tells you ALL about her day.  In detail.  In the kitchen or on the couch eating Doritos.  She talks and talks and talks and it is your dream come true to have a kid who will tell you everything about their day.

Seahawks Football Game in Seattle

You take her to your favorite events.  Baseball games, football games, the Fair, watching Cougar football on Saturdays, pumpkin patches, trick-or-treating, roller skating.  She happily watches your four year old play soccer and your six year old play hockey.  You watch five seasons-99 episodes-of Jane the Virgin.  You travel to the ocean for a few days to explore and, despite your son being incredibly difficult the entire time, she assures you that it was great.

Trip to the Washington Coast!

Eating scones at the Fair

Isa's birthday pool party in December

Christmas morning

Zoolights at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquari

The holidays come and you share traditions together.  You have holiday meals, hunt for the perfect Christmas tree, decorate Christmas cookies, visit Snowflake Lane, go to Zoolights, ooh and ahhh over the lights on the house, hide elves together.  She chooses to have her birthday party at your house (with the pool and 15 teenagers!) in December and says "take as many pictures as you want, we love pictures".

And the last month together comes around and every time someone asks "how much longer is she here?" you answer with "we're not talking about it".  It is a reality that just won't come true until the very last moment.  You go sledding, shopping, errand-running, drive her to Everett to see her friends, tell her to use the lice shampoo so her beautiful long hair doesn't pick up what the six year old brought home from school.  And the weeks inch closer to the time you have to say goodbye.




This is not just what it's like to have an exchange student, this is what it's like to have an Isa.  She is full of grace, grit, has the best laugh, always sneezes six or seven times in a row, will play any game, wants to win any game, sets aside time to play and wrestle, sets alarms for reminders throughout the day, has numerous alarms set in the morning to get ready for school but still sometimes needs to be woken up in the morning because she sleeps through them, loves your dog like her own, and forever has a place in your family's heart and home.  You should get yourself an Isa.  <3