sweet & salty: an adoption story

We’ve cried a bunch
Cussed a little and loved a lot over the last year.

Adoption.

Even as I type the word, I feel myself buffering, searching, I guess, for the words that fit or express all that it entails.

If you’re new here, I’m Karmen boymom times five. Two boys grew in my belly, the other three in my heart. Baby Jax was sent to us first via foster care. You can read part of his remarkable story here. David and Ayden are brothers & are the same ages as our bio boys, which means we have two 14s, two 12s, and a toddler.

I grabbed a couple of snacks last night on the way to the couch to write. I like to have snacks when I write. I love snacks even when I’m not writing, but that’s not the point (also not the point-unhealthy snacks). The point was discovered in the mixing of my snacks: a milk chocolate Hershey bar, white cheddar Cheeze-Its, and lemonade. I started with the Hershey bar because duh, chocolate, and then, after a few bars, I grabbed a handful of the salty squares and, lastly, a sip of lemonade when my mouth did a jump-up heel kick! The sweet-salty sour mixture made the most beautiful blend!

When the boys first moved in six days before Christmas, I thought this would be sweet. We will love Jesus and others, and we’ll live happily ever after because we’re following Him, and it will all work out, but then, life got salty, like really salty really fast. We went from two boys to three and then five boys in less than six months, and someone needed something or someone all the time, and then suddenly, sweet seemed so far away.

But God is faithful. (and I’m so glad He is) Even more thankful He sends us who or what we need when we need it even when it doesn’t feel like what we get is what we needed.

There have been countless days over the last year that’ve been just plain hard. There have been many moments I wondered if we were getting anything right. Sometimes I wrestled with quitting motherhood, but at the end of the day, I never could settle on how. So, J and I would go to bed and wake up the next day to find a new batch of sweet mercy and grace given to us to give to the boys, and one day became two, and then a week or month passed, and here we are. It was this day one year ago we became “Smith Party of Seven,” and I can’t help but cry.

I cry when I think about how far we’ve come—all of us. I praise the Lord for many of YOU who have come alongside us to pray, mentor, carpool, send hand-me-downs, given bikes or advice, lend an ear, texted funny family memes, babysat, or cheered for the boys all for one and one for all.

Thank you!!!!!!!!
Thank you, each and everyone, for every single kind act or effort. I promise-it mattered!

I crack up at the many and varied lessons on music, manners, hygiene, and girls and smile when I recall the in-depth discussions about God, sin, heaven, and hell.

I’m sure glad we didn’t say no.

The sweetness of handpicked bouquets and handwritten notes, family basketball and badminton, card games, the salty fights we’ve had, and sour attitude with enough family meetings to last a lifetime -man what a perfectly blended sweet-salty sour year it’s been!