Why we brought him back home...

The new school year is in full swing, we've had a wonderful summer and I am enjoying teaching all FOUR of my boys this year!  Yes, after having Toby in public school for a year, we prayerfully decided to bring him home to learn with his brothers.

I thought that perhaps by sharing a bit of this part of our story, others may be encouraged to make hard decisions, listen to the Lord's prompting and take a leap of faith.

While Toby did enjoy his fourth grade year in our local, small-town public school, my spirit was restless for most of the year.  He started off his year strong, loved his teacher, the other adults he came in contact with, art class on Fridays, school lunches, etc.  It was an adjustment for us all to send off one child to school while the other three stayed behind with me.  Toby often expressed concern that he was missing something we were doing without him; Jack (my social child) worried that he was missing something Toby had at school...there wasn't much peace to our year.

Toby for our town's birthday celebration in January

By late spring, we knew something had changed.  Toby no longer got up quickly in the morning.  He often left food on his breakfast plate - something he NEVER does.  He took his time tying his shoes and was a few minutes late to school several days in a row.  Something was up.  I contacted his teacher.  Though he had been very well behaved and respectful for most of the year, he had started acting up at school and was rude to his teacher.  Investigating a bit further, we found out that Toby was starting to be bullied at school.  It wasn't on a big scale and no teacher noticed it, but it was happening.  While Toby's peer relations are not his strong suit (something we are working on), some kids he thought were his friends became rude and even mean.  At the same time, the work load at school was increasing and the teacher thought he'd be able to handle it along with his classmates.

Toby had hit his limit, socially and academically.

The hardest thing about having a kid with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is that most people have no idea he has a disability and expect him to keep up with his peers.  This expectation sparks an endless frustration on the part of the child which can often lead to negative secondary behaviors.  Toby was receiving some special services during the day, but was expected to keep up with fourth graders and he simply couldn't do it.

On a Tuesday, I picked Toby up from school and he said, "I cried at school today, Mom."

"Why did you cry, Toby?" I asked.

"Because I am adopted."

"What do you mean, because you are adopted?  You are sad that you got adopted by us?"

"No.  But someone was making fun of me and said, 'You don't even know who your real dad is.'"

Whew.  I was not prepared for this.  That one comment could spark such a flurry of questions and tears.  Did I know what his "real" mom's face looked like?  What his dad's name was?  Did I know whose hands were those holding him in his baby picture?  Could they have been his mom's?

He's asked so few questions about his birth parents, this flood of emotion came so unexpectedly and I was angry that it happened because of the mean comment of some kid.

But it also became an opportunity to lavish him with love, for Josh to say, "You tell those kids you know EXACTLY who your dad is and his name is Josh Meyer!"

That night I rocked him and held him and told him the story of how I would show his picture to anyone and everyone in the months leading up to our trip to Ukraine, and each time the response was the same:  "Wow!  He looks like he was just born into your family!"  That helped a bit.

The next day, I kept him home from school.  I let him sleep in.  I made a pancake breakfast.  We read library books, took bread crumbs to the duck pond and found new nests and eggs, visited an older couple from church.  It was a beautiful day and Toby was radiantly happy.  He told me it was the "best day ever."

All last year, there was a nagging at my heart.  A conviction.  The Lord was asking me to do what I thought was the hard thing and prepare to home school Toby.  I resisted.  I made excuses in my mind of why keeping him in school would be a good thing.  But I knew.  And that ugly Tuesday and beautiful Wednesday just confirmed it.

So - we did it.  We let Toby finish the year, and told him that it was good to finish, but that next year he would be learning with his brothers at home.  He was THRILLED!  That knowledge alone changed him.  He became joyful again, even on the last few hard days of school.  He finished well, gave hugs to his favorite teachers, came home on the last day and washed out his lunch bag, happily saying, "Well, Mom, I won't need this again!"  We were so thankful for the year he had and the people who had lovingly invested in him, but we were excited about having him home again.

And that sense of joy continued throughout the summer.  Josh and I really prepared ourselves to face the same kind of resistance to learning at home that Toby threw at us in those first months in America...but there is no sign of it.  He is truly so happy and he is just blossoming under the nurturing influence of his family during the entire day.

He's getting more sleep and has not needed the Melatonin he has always required.

He wakes up cheerfully (and usually the earliest) and comes down to check of the items in his task book.  Sometimes he and I get all of his individual work done before the other boys are downstairs, and he loves this time.

Since Math is his most difficult subject to learn and he has so many holes in his understanding, we've brought him back to a first grade level, with lots of manipulatives and hands on activities, and he is telling people Math is his favorite subject!

He eagerly listens to our Bible story, our history lesson and anything else we learn together as a family and is learning how to narrate back what he is learning.  He is understanding!

He spends his free time during the day playing knights or vikings or Legos with his brothers, and the sound of all of them laughing and creating and imagining is something precious.

I've learned that his love languages are Quality Time and Acts of Service, so one of the best ways to fill his love tank is to let him help me in the kitchen.  He's learning to chop veggies, boil pasta, do laundry...and he is HAPPY!

There is peace in our home.  For those of you following our story, you know that we have NOT had much peace since bringing Toby home, aside from the peace that came with knowing we were in the center of God's will for our lives.  But it has happened.  We still have some behavior issues.  We still get frustrated and sometimes things don't flow as smoothly as others.  But we feel like a real family - finally!

So...I write this not so much to advocate for home schooling as to advocate for listening to what God is calling you to do.  Be still and hear His still, small voice.  He will give you wisdom to do the right thing for your family.  And for those of you who are still in those dark, unstable months of post-adoption life...hang in there and hang on to Jesus!  There is light coming.  Peace is possible.

I'll end this with a simple photo of the journal entry Toby wrote all on his own this week.  This is not something he would have written last year if asked the same question.  God is working on his heart...and there is peace there, too!