This is a common complaint among adoptive parents–we hear that phrase all the time. Oh, we’ve thought about doing that! I usually take it as being a way of identifying with our family, and a nice thing–a sort of way of saying, hey, we get you and we don’t think you’re weird and crazy. (Which is of course wrong, but we like to hear it just the same.)

But sometimes it’s frustrating. Because you could, you know. I suck at this. I am a loopy, flaky, snappish mother who changes moods in an instant, I’m often scary and I struggle nearly daily with how I got myself into this mess (by which I mean the whole lot of them, and why didn’t I just get an MFA and live out a peaceful life at various writers colonies?).

But we did it. There were lots of reasons not to, but we did it just the same. Granted, we’re crazy, but still. Granted, I’ll never pretend it was easy, but still. It’s done, and it’s finally good. And I keep thinking, hey, why don’t more people do this? I’m thinking it rather hard today because our adoption agency just posted a whole group of kids needing homes. And because I was researching this foster children available for adoption in the US. And because my fellow blogger Shirlee, at And Then There Were Seven, is advocating for several kids in her blog. I’m not an individual advocate like that, at least not yet. I’m more of a conversation starter. But when I see the kids on the various blogs and posts, I do look around at an awful lot of comfortable friends who have said that to me and think, huh. If they saw this stuff as often as I do, maybe they’d make a move.

Of course, I’ve been accused of making the whole thing sound somewhat less than appealing. Fair enough. But isn’t one really long year a small price to pay? I still think ours was a risk worth taking. And I still think (but I’m repeating myself, because I said this a post or two ago) that if you knew that was what you were in for, you could cope.