Honestly, I want to be a consistent blogger. Not for anyone's affirmation but my own desire to get thoughts down in print. I really do not care a ton if my thoughts are not read or noticed. However, I know I'll feel some sense of relief to get these jumbled words in my head out of me! :)
The 'new normal'~ Last summer our oldest son, Caleb, married his love. In July, in a midwestern town, in a family favorite place, he joined his life with her life to create their 'new normal'. This event began the new normal for our family, for me. When you are a unit of seven and one of the seven branches off to form a unit of two, it changes the core. We love our Rae. She loves our Caleb. God is good to bless them with each other and to bless our family with another daughter. They presently make their home many miles away. We miss them. We treasure when we have time together, as the Lord allows it to happen.
Our oldest girl, Rebekah, continued her schooling in CO in August. She is my friend. She is a favored big sister. We all miss her but trust her life to God who has her right where He desires her to be…for now. He may have a 'new normal' for her one day not too far away.
In September, our three high schoolers began a new year. This time around as two sophomores and a senior.
As Anna began her senior year, the reality once again settled in…one more will take her wings and fly, maybe close to home, maybe away. Regardless, things are changing and will change all the more as she is led to be further educated, work or serve in some (still unknown) way. Everything for her is 'the last time'; last soccer game, last Christmas concert, etc. Bittersweet. Our sweet Pixie Girl is a beautiful young woman who loves God and people.
The boys, Joseph and Jonathan, are young MEN. This is an amazing phenomenon. My little twinsies, JoJo and BoBo, are these quality young guys. They make me laugh and cry (tears of sweet sentiment). They love me, they serve me, they bless me. I look at these boys who are growing into fine men and I ask myself, "where, oh where did the last 10 years go?" It goes by fast folks! I regret at times not capturing more of the journey. But really, how could I and still keep some sanity. Five kids was a quiver full!!
In August, after 4 1/2 years of living in Oregon without any extended family nearby, my parents move here. They live about twenty minutes away from us. They are involved in the lives of their grandchildren on a weekly basis. It has been an incredible blessing to have them near and have our lives intersect once again. *They celebrated their 50th this last December. Huge accomplishment. :)
Now to our newest boy. I first have to say, we believe this boy has been our boy before the beginning of time. He was supposed to be our boy and we were to be his family all a long. It is just the process looked different for him than our bio kids. Terry Anthony Brown came to live with us permanently on Dec. 7th, 2013. When we are legally able to change his name he will be Terry Anthony James Polivka. The added James is so he too can have a family name (James is a name on both sides of our family) and also have a biblical name. His six older siblings have both a family name and a biblical name. Upon learning about this fact of his new siblings, he very adamantly and quickly said, I will have the same! With our Terry, everything has to be fair. :)
The above has defined our 'new normal'. Well, sort of.
The new normal is everything we thought it would be and nothing at all we foresaw it to be. Bringing an 11 year old boy into our home is one thing. Bringing Terry into our home is a whole new ballgame.
Let me introduce you to our "T man". Terry is the second oldest of five bio siblings. He and his siblings were removed from parental care about five years ago. Since then he has been in 10 elementary schools and we are his 11th placement. (We plan to be his last placement!) Terry is a very bright boy. He is witty and quite a cutie. He is a busy boy who loves video games, riding his bike, swimming and a good reader! He fits right into the Polivka family; He is a social butterfly! (God's sense of humor played out by yet another extrovert in the Polivka family with lots of opinions.)
Terry has never been apart of a functioning family unit. He has never been a 'team' member. He has never learned how to respect one another or be grateful or kind or sensitive to others in the home. He did not have parents teach him at age 2, 3 or 4 how to obey the first time or follow rules. Terry never witnessed a love for Mom and a respect for Dad. He did not learn the attributes of truth, honesty, forgiveness and sacrificial love. He never saw these attributes lived out during his young life growing up. We taught these things (sometimes have to review them!) with our other five children. As an eleven year old boy, Terry is learning these childhood/parenting concepts for the very first time. Our Joseph put it this way, (paraphrase) "Terry is very much like us all in personality, he actually fits in. He is a smart boy who has similar personality traits like the rest of us. He just was never taught, guided or corrected when he was young like we were. If he had that as a young boy, he would be doing just fine. It just makes it harder now. It is more work for us and him." Joseph is right. It is harder now. I've said recently, to young parents of young children…keep up the consistent, daily work in child training! It is worth all the effort and will be a blessing to you and your children later. We see this everyday. If only someone had taught Terry some of these life and character tools. But no, God has purposed for Dwight and I, for our family, to be the 'someones' to teach Terry these life tools. Praising God He is allowing us the privileged and joy to be the 'someones' to do the job! One of the absolute blessings has been the response by our older children. Dwight and I have been blown away at how they, each of them, have sacrificially loved their new brother and have entered into the process of guiding him, teaching him and loving him. We could not be more thankful for the way they have shown gospel love to Terry!
This adoption journey is a lonely one. I have learned unless one is passionate themselves for adoption, many do not understand why you choose this route. Many have not understood why we have entered into adoption. Many will support and tell you what a great thing it is, but struggle with seeing the vision and calling to live out the gospel in this personal way. We feel we did not choose this route. We feel it was chosen for us…by God. He put it on our hearts to enter the adoption ring and fight for one of the many orphans waiting to be given a forever home. James 1:27 jumped off the page to us! When we began this process, we had no knowledge of Terry Brown. But God did! He had Terry waiting for us. He had our family waiting for Terry Brown. I had an absolute peace about adopting a child into our home. I STILL HAVE ABSOLUTE PEACE about adopting Terry into our home. Is it easy? No! Are there days when we want to give up? Yes, more like moments. Are we tired sometimes, all the time? Yes, an emotional weariness sets in. Terry is a lot of work. And not just for Dwight and I. He is work for his siblings, his teacher, his principal, his sunday school teachers, his grandparents (such a blessing to have them nearby to help with Terry) and he is work for himself. He is working hard to break bad habits, controlling mechanisms, coping strategies and poor behavior patterns developed since birth. We believe he wants this to work. We see hope in our boy T. HOPE is what we cling to. We desire most of all for Terry to come to know Jesus. This is our foremost prayer. Secondly, we desire for him to 'cease striving' and settle in to the family, a family which loves him and desires a future with him, baggage and all.
We desire for him to experience the family of God as well. We have heard it said, 'it takes a village to raise a child.' We have already experienced this played out with Terry joining our family. We are not prideful and feel we have it all under wraps. This is a new 'parenting' ballgame folks! We need you! I need you… Bring on the village!! :)
And welcome to our 'new normal'!
Love this song! Speaks our heart and desire…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAlE2EnUP5A
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