A Boy and his Doll

The hazards of 3 older sisters...

...though now that I look at the photo more carefully, he may

actually be trying to poke the baby in the eye.

What made you decide to adopt?

This is a question we get fairly frequently. Among the people we know, having 4 children is unusual. Having 3 kids is considered a large family, and 4?? Just plain craaaaaAAzy. So I'm sure it does seem curious that we would work so hard to get a fourth. So what made us want to adopt?

My honest answer (and I really don't mean this flippantly) is simply:

It seemed like a good idea.

And it still seems like a good idea. In fact, it clearly was a good idea. I mean, seriously: have you met this kid???

Why NOT adopt? We like kids, and wanted another child. There are thousands, if not millions (wait, actually there really are millions...this is well-documented) of children who need families.

{As an aside, did I mention I really hate the word "orphan?" Well, I do.}

We have never once had even a fleeting thought of wondering if we could love an adopted child the same as a biological child. Just never even occurred to us. And really, I think it is a little weird that other people would wonder this. I'm not judging people who think this. I just can't relate to it.

We could not fathom of ever regretting adding another child to our family, nor could we fathom regretting adopting. We could, however, imagine regretting NOT adopting.

So there you have it: we adopted because it just plain seemed like a good idea.

And, as it turns out, we were right.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!

Not sure what else to call this post...

This is obviously a horrible quality photo (taken by Sheref with his i-Phone and emailed to me at work today), but it made me laugh out loud. Jinjin looks like a lunatic about to lunge out of the cart to attack someone. Like a crazed leprechaun or something. Oh my, I'm making myself laugh just thinking about it...