- California -
We’re a fun loving and family-oriented couple, looking to expand our family. Our (bio) son is 5, but we have since experienced infertility, and now hope to grow our family through adoption.
I’m originally from Sweden, and having traveled all around the world for work and for play for a decade I met David and we settled in a coastal town in California close to where we both work. Some of my favorites: Hiking, taking evening classes, nature, reading, having friends over, our pets, travel, new technology and art projects.
Oregon grown and raised, I’m equal amounts outdoorsman and tech enthusiast, running deep on both accounts. Some of my favorite things to do are: Fishing, exploring, having family visitors, the theatre, learning new things, being in the outdoors, tending to our vegetable garden & orchard, cooking, reading, watching college football…
Hi,
Thank you for reading our profile and considering if we could be a match for you and your child.
We are a family of 3, and we’d all love to have another member of our family. We’re fun loving and very family oriented – we love doing new things together, learning new skills together, hanging out, going about life together. Our home is filled with happiness, a beautiful garden, wonderful neighbors, interesting books, games, food and pets.
Should you place your child with us, you’d find us communicative, open and available both during and after the adoption process itself is complete.
A first time parents might not know what they’ll be like as a parent, but since we already have a child I can tell you what approach we’re already using.
As a baby and toddler we made sure to provide a very calm environment with at home care. Safety, stability, nutrition, health and hygiene is right at the top of your mind with a small child.
I’d say we’re very attentive and ‘in the moment’ with our child. We’re not trying to ‘make him grow up’ or ‘trying to keep him our baby’ instead we let him set his own pace. And rather than trying to build interests/hobbies for him, again we let him drive that, and just ‘feed him’ whatever he’s interested in. So when he got into lego, we got him lego sets, built with him, let him join a lego club, subscribe to the lego magazine and so forth, and when his interest changed – we adjusted our support accordingly. We try to join his activities where appropriate so we’re experiencing things together.
We also try to illustrate behaviors, as an example we read books to him/ on our own a lot and discuss books together. We talk a lot about the world, the planet, the environment, politics, community, technology and sports at the dinner table, so he’s building a well rounded knowledge by assimilation. But we don’t force our opinions on him, instead we ask open questions so he has a chance to decide for himself. We also invite him to help us with work in the home such as planting trees, doing DIY activities at home, caring for our pets and sometimes he joins, other times not.
We invite him to making decisions, as an example he gets to decide on certain activities when we’re on holiday, or let him pick what he wants for dinner (we still make sure it ends up being heathy by choosing quality ingredients and always including vegetables), what clothes to wear, what books to read, after school activities, what sports he wants to do etc.
We like this calm, inclusive and down to earth form of parenting. We always take into consideration that one day he’ll be an adult and how we treat him now will affect what our relationship will look like in the long run.
We live in California, on the far west coast in the mountains overlooking redwood forests and the ocean. We are in a small community with 30-or so houses, and people of all ages. There are joined halloween parties, Christmas parties, summer socials etc. The kids all play together and mix across the different age groups.
We have a large garden with an orchard that we’ve grown from scratch and vegetable garden, and are able to eat produce that we harvest.
It’s a very safe environment and lots of forest for kids to explore.
Beyond our immediate surroundings it’s 20 minutes to the coast/ beaches, and in the opposite direction we’re 40 minutes from a large city. So we get the best of both city life and the outdoors.
The nursery is upstairs in the warmest part of the house (don’t worry we have A/C in the summer), and it feels very calm and safe. A big changing table full of kids clothes, books and toys take up the left side of the room. A crib/bed is on the other side. We have a comfortable rocking chair for reading/ bed times that we use every day. A small mountain of plush toys make up a snuggle spot, and in the built in cupboard there’s a ‘secret den’ with cushions, kids posters, an electric lantern and books.
The cupboard is filled with toys and more kids clothes.
On the walls there are illustrations from children’s books.
Outside the nursery is another play area with art projects decorating the walls, and toys, a kids kitchen, kids work bench a car tower and so forth for larger toys. This area changes a little bit every week as we use it to build forts, train tracks and so forth.
And downstairs in the TV room we have a games cupboard, lego corner etc. We don’t limit play to a particular area, but I’m a neat person so I do like a level of organization and a lot of cleanliness.
Wowza – pets. Yes, we are pet lovers. Where to start? We have two dogs and a parrot.
Outside we have chickens and bees. (Think: Scrambled eggs, and greek yoghurt with fresh honey.) We also inherited David’s grandads pet desert tortoise who lives in the garden. She’s 70 so she isn’t very active these days but she comes out for her den for meals, and if you sing. (Although not right now, because she hibernates in the winter.)
We have a lot of family and it’s very spread out. We have family locally, as well as in Oregon (where David is from) and LA. My sister lives in Australia with her family and my brother in Greece with his, and my mum and her sisters + my cousins are in Sweden (where I’m from). But my fathers family – aunties/uncles/cousins in England.
We travel, we host and we do zoom calls to stay in touch.
