There’s a good chance I’ll smack the next person who says this

 You’re a saint. That’s a typical response when someone hears for the first time that my husband and I adopted three children when they were 8, 9, and 12. In fact, I’ve already heard it once today.

And I wonder – are saints the only people who love children?

Is it that my older three were broken when they arrived and to some extent, are broken still--does that make them harder to love?

If a car hit your dog, would you love him less because he couldn’t stand until his legs were mended?

What You are a saint really means is I don’t understand your choice. Sometimes people even follow it up with I could never do that. To which I think, Who’s asking you to?

Not everyone is suited for parenting, much less parenting a child who has been abused and abandoned.  To them I say – party on, man – in whatever way life makes sense to you.

Not everyone is suited for accounting or anesthesiology either. Is my accountant a saint for following his nature? (Well he is when he chooses not to smack me in the head for the mess I bring into him every year, always late)

That’s not to say that adopting three children at the same time when I already had two younger children wasn’t shit crazy. Sure it was. But that’s my nature.