It's Official!

So this is what we came home to a few Thursdays ago. The Broads had decorated our house with wonderful "It's a Boy" balloons and noisemakers. It was VERY fun to come home to!

Here is how conversations with the neighbors went. (It all made me realize that while I really love having a bunch of stay at home Dads on my street, we just don't spend much of our conversation time talking about personal stuff.)



Neighbors: "Did you have a baby?"



Me: Um, no. (Really??Did they think I could hide that for nine months?) But I'm pregnant.



Neighbors: "You are?!"



Me: yeah.



Neighbors: "And it's a boy?"



Me: Well, no.



Neighbors: "....oh."



Me: We finalized the adoption today!



Neighbors: "oh. Well, that's nice too, I guess."



Introducing the latest addition to the Smith family:


Warren Logan Smith!

This is a picture with him and the woman who has been his caseworker for the last several years. We like her a lot. And are sort of sad she won't be around anymore.

This is the whole new and improved Smith family with the FABULOUS judge. He's showing us the notepad that he doodled caricatures on while we were having our hearing:



When Caleb first met the judge, he asked him to bang his gavel and say "Order in the court!" The judge looked a little worried and said, "Um. I don't think I actually have a gavel." Caleb was not amused. Seeing that the judge was about to lose a five year old fan before the hearing even started, he walked all around the chambers looking for a spare gavel. (The idea amused me. Like people keep extras in their desk?) He finally came back in the room and said, "Well, I couldn't find a gavel, but I did find this." And he proceeded to pull out a tape measure and bang it on the desk. The gravity of the statement was sort of lost on the fact that every time he banged it on the desk, the tape actually flew out a few inches. He was a great judge, though, and helped to make the experience very positive.

We are very happy that Warren has chosen to become a part of our family and feel fortunate that we were all able to enjoy this day with him.

Teenage boys

When boys in our church turn 19, they serve a two year mission away from home. Several years ago I chuckled when I saw the saying "We should send missionaries out when they are 16. They still know everything and their mothers wouldn't cry when they left."

I have found myself totally understanding that sentiment lately as I get to routinely deal with the drama of a 16 year old son.

But then there are these bright and shining moments where I don't want to kill him because he says things that are sweet and insightful. Like today when he said, "If I'd known what I was going to get at the end, I would have gone through six more foster homes to get here."

Okay

There's sort of been a rather large and ignored elephant in the room lately.  

And I wasn't quite sure what to do about him until now.

Most of you are aware that our new son is living with us, but he's not technically ours yet and won't be for several months.  With that in mind, I've been cautious about sharing stories about him because I don't have full "jurisdiction" over him yet.

But it's time.  He's here.  And he's ours.  But, I will just use one of his initials until it's official, and I will avoid many details.

So....

"WELCOME "J"!!!!"

Musical Monday

The snow has been replaced this particular Monday by rain.  At least it's warmed up a bit.

Today's musical selections are in honor of our almost son.  We went to see him perform as Cinderella's Prince in Sondheim's "Into the Woods".  He was WONDERFUL!!  He has a lovely voice and a tremendous stage presence.  He is clearly at home on the stage.  It was such a joy to watch him and the rest of the cast!  These clips are obviously not of a high school show, but our Princes were very like these professionals.

The prince has three main numbers and then little scenes here and there.  In the first scene, he and his brother bemoan the troubles of getting their princesses; Cinderella and Rapunzel.

In the second song, the princes have caught and married their princesses...and are missing the thrill of the chase.  They return to the woods and find Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.  Best line ever- "Dwarves are very upsetting!"

In the third, there is a Giantess killing in the land and everyone in running through the woods.  Cinderella's prince finds the baker's wife...

I will confess it was a little odd to watch our almost son seducing someone, albeit in character on stage.  Still.  I didn't even know for sure he had ever kissed anyone.  And there he was on stage kissing the baker's wife quite thoroughly.  He looked to be doing a good job of it, too.    

Is it creepy to notice that my teenage son seems to be a good kisser?  I mean, I wouldn't want any of my sons to be bad kissers.  But it seems like a strange thing for a mother to be aware of.  Hm.  

What the Heck We Were Thinking

I am one of four children.  All of us were adopted.  Todd is from a family in which three of the six kids were adopted.  It seemed very natural to say that we would one day adopt.  

When I realized I was pregnant on our six month anniversary of marriage, I was stunned.  Mostly because everyone is sort of stunned that first time, but also because I had no idea pregnancy could be that easy.  We weren't even trying.  But the month before we had stopped trying not to, so it shouldn't have been that unexpected.  Seriously, though, I had grown up hearing stories of years and years of trying without success, so I assumed that would be us, too.

Apparently not.

When Benjamin was a toddler and I was pregnant with Nathaniel, I saw signs on the New Jersey Turnpike asking for people to volunteer to be foster parents.  I mentioned them to Todd and he said, "Not yet.  Now is not the time."

The same thing happened in between Nathaniel and Caleb.  And again Todd said, "Not yet."

After Caleb was born, nobody who lives with me wanted me to be pregnant ever again.  (I know it's shocking, but I'm not very pleasant while pregnant.)

Todd and I both heard a few news stories on NPR at different times highlighting the difficulties of getting adopted as an older child.  We knew that we didn't need to adopt a baby.  We had been there and done that, and everybody wants to adopt babies.  We wanted an older child, but one that would be enough older than Benjamin that the natural birth order of our kids wouldn't be upset.  So we started looking into what we needed to do to be able to adopt a teenager.

I love the teen years.  They are turbulent and tumultuous.  They are ridiculoulsy hard and really wonderful.  There is so much possibility and experimentation.  It's a great time to figure out how to start as a little kid and end up as a fledgling adult.  

I had a great time teaching middle school students way back when I was still teaching school, and my favorite part of seminary was being able to start my morning off with a bunch of kids whom I both loved and wanted to shake some sense into.  Sometimes all at once.

Our prayers in the last couple of years have included a lot of, "Please let us know if we are doing something completely insane here."  But mostly we feel absurdly calm about the whole thing.  Even when we realize that we are about to have to face driving, dating, and college about ten years before we were initially planning on addressing such things.

There was another element to all of this.  About three years ago, Todd looked at each other and said, "Now what?"  We had three beautiful boys.  Todd had a well paying job that he enjoyed.  We had a nice house in a great neighborhood.  So what was next?  This question led to lots of other questions.  Go back to school?  Career change?  Move? Baby?  After a few months of contemplating what was next, Todd finally said, "It's time."

And so, the ultimate answer of "What the heck you were you thinking adopting a sixteen year old?" is:

Because we want to and we can. 

And we've been given the go-ahead to do something that on paper seems utterly absurd.  We've been subtley preparing for this for our entire lives.  And this time our desires and the Lord's timetable seem to be in synch. 

 

  

Back to the Cleaning

I've decided that a week is more than enough time to walk around in a shell-schocked stupor of a new calling and a new kid, and it's time to get back to the cleaning/nesting thing.  

Today's projects will be cleaning the bathrooms, hallway, and stairs again.  And baking up the pumpkins and squash I received from our CSA so I can freeze them for future Thanksgivingy use.   The outlet covers and switch plates are still not painted and TODAY is the day.

Later this week, watch for the "What the heck we were thinking when we decided to adopt a teenager" post.  I've had so many people ask me that, that I figure next time I can just give them the blog address and be done with it.  ;)