Citizen Nicolas Pierre Aglae Marie Joseph Donck

We spent much of the day today in the Atlanta Homeland Security Office, where the kids and I witnessed Nicolas going through the last step of the long process of becoming a U.S. citizen. Well, mostly we sat in a waiting room. But then finally, after three hours of playing hang-man and twenty questions and lots of talk about hunger (we hadn't expected it to take so long and had not eaten) we entered the "ceremony room" and got to witness the swearing-in of Nicolas and 120 other newly approved citizens. There were 52 countries represented. A lot of people had many friends and family there to celebrate this rite of passage with them. Although Nicolas chose to get his citizenship mostly due to his father and I nudging him to do so (I wanted him to be able to vote, and his dad - to have the same passport as the kids and I when we are overseas), it was a very big deal for most of the people in that room today. I don't think that we should take ourselves so seriously, as United States citizens, but also, I never want to take the privilege of what it represents for granted.

And yes, this post's title does include Nicolas' legal name. It is made up of his godparents' names and, humorously, the parents of Jesus. He has no idea from whence this tradition sprung - whether it was family or religion or Belgium. He doesn't give things like this much thought. He is busy thinking about how many potatoes he needs to get in the ground when he finally gets back to the farm. He is the salt of the earth, citizen of this planet. I'm grateful he is here in this corner of it with me.