So...normal

This summer schedule is divine.  It is.  We are not getting much school done.  We are not going on many outings.  We are not signed up for enrichment activities.  It feels like we are starting to detox from the CRAZY life of fostering for the past 2.7ish years.  We are breathing and swimming and reading and playing and coloring and just being a family.  I think that at last we are healing.

Healing.

Zade is relaxing again for the first time in a very long time.  He goes days between waking up angry at the world and ready to show it to anyone who potentially is a threat.  He plays and plays with the other kids.  He is affectionate and seeking out time on my lap and impromptu hugs.  He certainly still has his moments, but they are, for the time-being at least, just moments in otherwise very good days.  I see him bonding more and more with his brothers, all of them.  He and Brishen have pool noodle fights.  He and Soren try to out-jump each other in the pool for hours.  He and Tobias play quietly with toys for the longest time as if no one else exists.  Oh, how I pray this is true healing that continues for him.

Zade is not the only one who is healing.

There was this moment today that brought tears to my eyes.  There was a movie on the TV, and the kids were all around the living room watching it while also coloring with markers.  I was sitting on the floor near the couch.  Soren had his coloring book on the couch and casually colored and watched the show while his little feet were dangling on my legs the whole time.  It was a touch that was so beautifully natural and normal for a mom and her little boy.  It was so...normal.

The reality is, though, that normal doesn't happen easily when your family comes together as mine has.  It takes time and work and love, especially when the kids would much rather be with their other mom.  It takes swallowing your words when they call for her even though you are the one who is making all the sacrifices for them when she has chosen a different path.  It takes prayer, lots of prayer, not that they will change, but that you will find a way to be just the mom each child needs.  It takes a whole lot of faking normal with a dream that someday there will be more and more moments of normal mixed in with the crazy.

Cassia sounds more and more like Basia every day.  She has copied her phrases and mannerisms and attitude.  They are sisters.  It's so normal.

Tobias is my timid child, but he is the one who leaped into the air to kill a mysterious flying bug when the others were screaming and trying to get away.  He felt strong and capable and instantly vanquished the fear of the whole lot of them.  If he could chase the bug down then they could, too.  He is finding his role in the family, his place.

Edison demands I sit down and hold him or sit by him or read to him, and this summer pace means that I have time to do just that.  I am thankful for his insistence that I save the laundry folding for another time. I am reminded of how slow and quiet life was when Brishen was little and we lived on a tiny island where the pace of life was so very different and how awesome that was.  I want that slow, simple life for all my kids' early years.

The Baby is taking naps.  Actual naps.  Actual naps in his crib when he doesn't need me to hold him.  It is amazing how much that has freed up my time.

Basia is crafting.  She has made a stack of pot holders and will likely make many more.  She started sewing a tablecloth tonight.  She cooks virtually every day and enjoys the chance to look in the refrigerator and decide what we will all eat for a meal, no matter how eclectic the meal becomes.  I am seriously considering finding a book that will teach the two of us some basic knitting.  Working with her hands garners her attention in ways that nothing else does.  I can see us bonding through some upcoming moody years through things we do together with our hands.

Brishen's summer self makes me smile.  It reminds me so much of the little learner he was so long ago.  His love of learning has never died.  He is reading.  He is building with Legos.  He is trying to teach himself Calculus and computer programming.  He dusts off his old logic puzzle books.  It almost makes me want to cancel all future schooling to see how far he will go when his own schemes and dreams lead the way.  That sweet 7-year-old who would sit on the couch for hours while I read a great book is still there, hidden in that giant teen body.

The only child I have not mentioned is Sir Smiles.  It's tougher to talk about him.  My heart hurts.  It's time for him to break away from us and us from him, as he spends more and more time with his family, but he is still so much my son and the brother to my kids.  He makes me smile all the time, and I feel sad that his parents will have no idea what he is saying or to what it references.  He is one of the gang, and he's about to leave the gang behind.  He sings the songs they sing.  He asks the questions they ask.  He follows them around, copying their every move.  I know he belongs with his family, but the letting go without worrying is not an easy task.  His place in our family is so...normal.

Foster care is not normal, though, and I think that is what makes this summer so nice.  In ways big and small, we are starting to break away from the foster care craziness that has been consuming our life.  In two weeks, we will have three fewer foster kids since two will become our forever kids and one will return to his family home.  We met with the adoption worker this week, and she said she will send us paperwork to start the adoption process for Soren and Tobias, mentioning that we can then adopt them early in August.  If all works out, in the next six weeks we will be down from six foster kids and five case workers to only one foster kid and two case workers.  We will be down from five family visits a week to one or even none.  Our life is shifting to a more natural pace and place, and I am loving every second of the normal that is emerging.

Thank you, God, for bringing on the normal!  Who ever thought they'd hear me say that?