Happy 5th Birthday Justus!

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Do you just feel like the Bacak birthdays never stop coming in the summer? It's because they don't.
Now it's Justus' turn. Our adorable brown baby is turning FIVE!
You gotta admit, this kid is handsome. I can say that because he didn't get it from me. You can see his birthmom, Kathleen, in one of the pictures. He obviously gets it from her! She's beautiful!
He can be a real charmer. He says to me regularly, "Mom, you're so bootiful" which I love, of course, but I find it's usually when he's doing something sneaky or wrong and he's trying to distract me from it.
He's good.
Our boy is wicked smart. He's been doing the older kids' work for years, only when he thinks answering Jax's question will thoroughly annoy him (and it does!) and for no other reason! We can't wait to see how God is going to use Justus' gifts and talents for Him! (Yes, someday He will use all this for good and not evil!)
Justus loves to snuggle at night, which I am trying to hold on to with my boys as long as possible! He can be the sweetest big brother to his "buddy" Treston you've ever seen. And he is absolutely the wittiest five-year-old I know. He's always had a quick-witted response, far beyond his years, that keeps us in stitches around here.
We are overwhelmed with gratitude to the Lord for his birthmom, Kathleen, giving us the greatest gift a human can give. We hold fast to God's purposes in that, and feel blessed to be Justus' parents.
Happy birthday sweet boy!

Happy Adoption Day Justus!

On April 8th we stood before the judge's bench as a family, and he confirmed legally what had been done for a long time.
Justus Joseph Bacak was always a Bacak. God had ordained it from the beginning of time. When I first got that beautiful baby, he didn't look my like my others, but he was ours. He had hair. I didn't know my babies could have hair! He was light brown, and got a little browner everyday. I was kind of excited to get up everyday and see a new shade of beautiful brown. That was exciting! I didn't birth him, but he was my baby.
He was ours forever.
He was loved, by his birthmom and by us. She mourned while we rejoiced. We loved her and hurt for her before we even met her.
Adoption has taught us so much. There's no way to measure it.
And what a good time for us to reflect, during Easter season, how we have been adopted.
If you know Christ as your Savior, you are adopted.
He chose us. He picked us up and made us His own. His very own, forever. There's nothing we can do to make Him love us less or be less a child of the King. Adoption is forever.
What Jesus did on the cross took all our sins for all time, and there's no backs.
Once you accept Christ's sacrifice, your sins are gone, forgiven, and you can't take them back.
In the same way, Justus is a Bacak forever. He couldn't do anything to be less a Bacak or make us love him less.
God is good! April 8th will always be a day to celebrate!
I can't imagine the Bacak family without Justus!? We would be missing a great deal of comic relief, for sure! We wouldn't be the Bacaks. We would be incomplete. Justus filled a hole in our family that only God could fill.
This family is SO thankful for adoption, in every way!
We are thankful for Kathleen, who loved Justus first and put his needs above her own.
We are thankful for New Life who does the hard and never-ending work of ministering to women, children, and families.
We are thankful most of all to our God, who adopted us, and blessed us with adoption in our family.
We are thankful for you, Justus Joseph Bacak!

I had a brilliant idea...

Justus could totally be Obama for Halloween!
Can you see it? Put some slacks and a long-sleeve polo shirt, sleeves rolled-up, on the kid...it would be perfect!
However, this would have to compete with his ideas of what to be for Halloween.
His top ideas right now are: 1) Jaba the Hut 2) a monkey 3) a penguin
I'm going to work on it.

Justus and Kathleen: Open Adoption

See a resemblance here? Me too.
That's because this is Justus' birthmom, Kathleen. Isn't she gorgeous?
I realize I'm WAY behind in blogging about a birthday that happenned six weeks ago, but I really want to share with y'all about Kathleen.
Justus turned four, and this was our third time to invite Kathleen in for his birthday celebration. Kathleen moved far away after she placed Justus with us, so we don't have the advantage of proximity in our relationship, but we do have the advantage of openness.
Open Adoption. I know these are two words that strike fear into many people's hearts who are considering adoption.
Because of that, I want to share where we are coming from on this.
New Life, our agency, does semi-open adoptions. This mean you are chosen by the birthmom, you meet her, you visit and write letters and send pictures, all under the supervision of the agency. In other words, they are the go-between in all those things. You don't exchange last names or addresses or e-mail addresses usually. The agency handles your communication, but requires that you communicate. They encourage the building of a relationship that is beneficial to both the birthmom and your child. Why is this beneficial? So many reasons.

For the Birthmom
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding concerning a birthmom and her motives for placing her baby. My Mom has been doing this for about 20 years, and I will be making generalizations based on New Life's experience with birthmoms and what I've seen over the majority of my life as she's done this. Not every birthmom is the same, of course, thus the word "generalization."
Birthmoms want what's best for their baby. They carried this baby to term for a reason. They love their babies, and as heart-wrenching as it is for so many of them, that have come to the realization that they can't parent in a way their baby deserves to be parented. Some of them grew up without fathers or in homes that were less than ideal. They don't want that for their own babies. They want them to have Moms, loving Dads, siblings, a dog, a house, and all the things they can dream up for their child. (Every birthmoms dream is different, of course, but I think they definitely have dreams for their kids, like you and I do.) For various reasons specific to them, they are overwhelmed with their own lives and problems, and in such great humility that so many of us lack, have to admit they can't give those things. They are heart broken over this decision. But they put their baby's needs above their own...something I know I should do as a believer but still fear I would put my own feelings first...and they make the most difficult decision they'll ever make, and choose to make an adoption plan for their child.
This is not something they take lightly. There is much grief, tears, and doubt that surrounds this decision. They have very real fears. They fear that they'll never see or hear from their child again. They fear that their child will think they don't love them. They fear that they'll feel abandoned by them. They fear the adoptive parents will divorce or worse. They fear their child will be sick and they won't know about it. They have a deep need to know that their child will be okay.
Communication is so important here! New Life requires a good deal of communication by letters and pictures in the first year, and this is such a relief to them! They get reports on their health and well-being. They get to see how their growing and changing! This means the world to them, and every picture and letter is a treasure.

For the adopted child
In trying to keep this brief, let me just say, we wholeheartedly believe a child knowing his birthparents, feeling totally secure is their love for him, certain of the reasoning for his placement so that he doesn't feel abandoned or unloved, is in his ABSOLUTE best interest! Instead of seeing birthparents as a risk, we choose to see them as a loving part of our extended family! They made this very wise choice! They gave us the greatest gift of all time! Who are we to say "thanks for the baby! Now...go away!" Where is the Christ-like attitude in that? Every family and agency has to decide what are the wise boundaries in this relationship in order to keep it healthy, (and this will of course vary from situation to situation!) but in the end, a relationship is ideal! When a child who's been adopted has questions about the circumstances of his birth, his birth family history, where he gets his color eyes and hair, we know where to go! What comfort there is in that! Adoptive parents need to get over the feelings of insecurity and fear and think about what is best for the child. I alone am his mother. If you call Kathleen Justus' Mom, I will always correct you. I'm his Mom. But she is his birthmom, and that is something I'll never be. She is important and special in his life, as Lynda is to Treston as well.

How open are we?
With Justus' birthmom, we've gone all the way open. I love it! It didn't happen overnight. We built a relationship that has taken time and trust. Slowly, with the blessing and supervision of New Life, we've crept more and more toward open until we busted it wide open with this last visit in August. She came to OUR house, stayed here in our home, and spent the weekend loving on Justus. She's amazing! I don't want to include a lot of details about her life, but she has overcome so much, and we are so proud of her. She's very different from us. In fact, she was Muslim when she placed Justus with us, and we have spent the past four years praying for her salvation and talking to her about Jesus. She is closer than ever to believing in the Truth! She knows we love her. She knows Justus loves her and knows her. They have a special bond that blesses us! We love seeing them together. We know that only good will come from their open relationship and his feeling loved by her.

We have learned SO, SO, SO MUCH from this process. We tell people starting out on this journey, this is the most refining, sanctifying process you'll ever go through. You will know yourself and be stripped of junk you didn't know you were wearing by the end. Praise God! I wish I had time to list all of the good things we have learned through this, but my children need to eat breakfast.
But praise the Lord, He can take away all fear, all prejudice, all selfishness, all wrong thinking, and replace it with HIM through this.
We firmly believe that open adoption is a ministry to children and birthmoms equally. We have seen it serve more purposes than we actually dreamed of. God filled the holes in our family with beautiful children we didn't deserve, and he's taught us about loving people we never would have known or had a clue about before. We're not the same as we were before this. Were we scared? Were we selfish? Were we uncomfortable with being totally out of control? YES, YES, YES!!!! But those were all things that God was more than big enough to handle.
If you have questions about adoption, feel free to shoot them at us. We're not experts. We have only our own experiences, and I have a little benefit of growing up in the shadow of New Life and my Mom's life work, but in the end, I understand that there are different perspectives on this and we respect that. However, we feel compelled to always share what God has done through this for us, and for our children and birthmoms alike.

Witty

My three-year-old, Justus...he's just witty.
Rusty and some of the kids went to Target the other day.
Justus is at that stage where there are letters floating all around him, and he can identify them, but is not sure what they say.
So he said the letters outloud "T-A-R-G-E-T."
Rusty said "What do you think that says, Justus?"
Justus looked up and grinned and said "Wal-Mart?"
He knew he was being funny. He has always been so sharp and witty like that!
He keeps us cracking up around here. Plus his laugh is beyond contagious. He's one of those people who will always laugh, and people will laugh with him.
BUT, speaking of TARGET!!!! We are getting a new one around these parts, and that is really exciting! I don't know if it's a Super Target, but that would just be too much excitement around here.
Hopefully tomorrow, I will have time to sit down and write about all God is doing in me...it's good! Yesterday's service at church...GOOD! I'm almost ready to move it from my heart and brain to my fingers.

Justus

Justus. What a trip.
We have had three eventful years with him thus far.
I have no doubt life will always be an adventure with Justus.
Some of you remember my older posts about how he off-ed our fish, tried to kill our turtle, painted himself and Treston with nail polish, painted the porch, and flung his poop.
Well, he's grown up a little since then.
He's gained more words, Praise God.
But he's just as mischevious as ever.
Just recently, he spray painted his red tricycle with black spray paint.
He climbed to a top shelf in the garage (while he was supposed to be riding his trike outside on the driveway), pulled out the spray paint, and painted his tricicyle. And a little of our van.
No kidding.
He has Sharpied my computer recently also.
Yep, permanent blue Sharpie all over my computer screen (he traced a word quite well on the screen from his educational web site) and wrote on my keypad.
It eventually came off. Love those magic erasers.
He permanent markered our back porch and wrote Chinese all over our porch swing.
He also recently got my car keys and got in the van, ready for take-off.
(Thank you Jesus for helping me find him first!)
He is definitely the child who is not afraid to drive away in our mini-van. He laughs at childproofing. There is no bottle or container he can't open. And his curiosity drives him. There's nothing he won't try.
He is quick-witted, this little guy, and his laugh is crazy infectious.
(One of my favorite things about him.)
Once Justus started getting some language, we realized this kid was smart.
He has always had an evil genius about him!
But we are positive when he gets "Jesus in his tummy" as he calls it, he will use his powers for good, and not evil!
Is he the most familiar with our spanking spoon? Definitely. Is he challenging? Without a doubt. But is he our joy? YES!
He really is brilliant. We can't take credit for it. He doesn't contain a drop of our DNA. Even if he did, God is the giver of all our gifts, so what credit can we ever take?
He has been ready for school for a while now. He's only three, so I have been focusing on the older kids' school work, but I knew it was time to give him more!
So Erin, my wonderful helper in the mornings and priceless friend, started preparing Pre-K lessons for him. She's a teacher, you know.
We knew he knew his letters and sounds already, and he was already printing many letters.
So we started this past week with regular Pre-K work.
We have been overwhelmed with what he's done in a week!
I'm not kidding when I say HE'S READING.
He started reading words yesterday. I almost thought "Did we imagine this?"
So we just pulled out a word flip book a few moments ago, and had him read words to Rusty and I.
We aren't imagining it. He can read many words.
Simple words, of course, but we are amazed!!!
What will this kid do next to make us stand back with our mouths open?
Who knows?
Praise the Lord, I am seeing more of an awareness of God is his life...more remorse for his sins...more desire to pray.
Someday, he's going to be a great warrior for Christ!
Our little Brown Bear is quick. We're just trying to keep up.

The Distribution of Justus

Each of the kids has a money jar.
They earn a few dollars allowance each week. They get birthday money, and they save it in their jar. (We started this because it was just getting too easy to steal their money when it was given them.) Now they save for things themselves. Like yesterday, we went to the Rennaissance Festival for School Days, and they each brought $10 out of their jar. They picked what they wanted to do with it, and when it was gone, it was gone.
But this picture shows how Justus has been viewing the distribution of the money jar. Emma had a birthday in Sept. and her jar was full. Justus' jar only had change. But suddenly one day, Emma's jar was completely empty, and his jar was full! Amazing! Usually, when Justus does something sneaky like this, like stealing the other kids' french fries or something, he leaves a little so it's not so obvious. He's brilliant! But this time, he just took it all! We had to have a little talk about this. Look at his face on the jar!? He even looks sneaky there! But this little guy keeps us entertained! When God harnasses his talents for good and not evil, he's going to do something AMAZING for the Lord!!!
I haven't updated everyone on his speech lately, but he's doing awesome! He is speaking so much and more clearly than ever! He still needs sign, but we are proud of how he is changing and even becoming more obedient. He is a joy to us! He is the comedian in the house, and says some of the funniest things! Everyday he tells me "When I wake up, I be a firefighter." Cute thing. Life is just too boring without a three-year-old in the house, you know?

Justus and Red Nail Polish

These two things are not a good combination.
Our little firefighter Justus really does love red, so of course he would want to paint with red nail polish.
And he did.
He painted his face, his head, and mostly his hair.
But that wasn't enough.
He had to paint his brother too!
Treston's head and face were brightly painted as well.
When the little bandit was caught, Erin and I went to scrubbing them.
We scrubbed and scrubbed.
Justus' hair still has red highlights, and Treston's scalp has some large, fading spots of red.
Of course we tried nail polish remover, but have you ever tried to get nail polish off of hair and the scalp? Not easy.
I couldn't write this yesterday. It wasn't funny yet.
Erin and I knew, as we scrubbed our little brown, painted-red people that it would be funny eventually. Just not yet.
Rusty called, and he asked why I sounded frustrated. I explained. He laughed. I told him "it's not funny yet!"
Amanda called, and then she laughed. It still wasn't funny yet!
So much of what Justus does will eventually be funny, but it takes a while.
And I'm puzzled as to why Treston sits still and lets him do these things to him?
Last week, for example...
I walked into the playroom, and saw large marks written on Treston's forehead.
I said "Who wrote on Treston?"
Justus, while holding a pen in his hand, shrugged his shoulders and said "I dunno." (not exactly in those words, but with the intonation implying it.)
This is not a good sign for future mischief ahead.
If Treston is going along for the ride, we are in big trouble.
I think we need to teach him to tattle, soon and often.
Just never a dull moment.
At least the carpet didn't get it. Justus had perfect aim.

Happy Birthday Justus!!!

Our Little Bear is 3! Wow! We had a fun "woo-woo-woo" celebration this weekend, visited the fire station (No. 1-they are awesome over there) and had the coolest firetruck cake in the history of little boys who love firetrucks, made by Erin Whitley at Sweet Memories. Awesome! Erin, you're a super star!

Kathleen, Justus' birthmom came to visit! We fly her here from Las Vegas, her home, to be with us for his birthday. It was a WONDERFUL visit with Kathleen, and I had the chance to have many conversations with her about the Lord. Please pray for her as she searches for Truth. Pray for God to make his Son's name known to her everywhere she looks. She is looking for a "sign" for the right religion. I told her we are standing in front of her holding up a billboard sign with the name Jesus on it. We love Kathleen, and are enjoying a closer and more intimate relationship with her. Our adoption has been busted wide-open now that she has been to our home. It feels good to me. I love this woman so much!

It was sweet for me, watching them together. I was overcome with emotion on Sunday night after she left. She is not an emotional person, but I could see on her face what she was feeling when she left, and I felt it for her. I watched Justus stand on the driveway and wave goodbye to her until she was out of sight. She knows she won't see him for another year. As she was leaving, she was telling me what she knew I needed to hear...what a great decision she made for him...how well he's doing...how she saw God's hand in this...how thankful she was for us. Again, this woman is thinking of Justus and us, and not her. This overwhelms me! I know Christ, and I'm still not that selfless!
There is an undeniable connection between them. There should be. I hope there always will be. I am his real Mom, no doubts about that. I am the one who holds him, bathes him, laughs with him, and spanks him. But she has a place in his life as Kathleen, his birthmom. It was neat that he knew who she was this year when she came. That thrilled her!

The Ambulance Bed:

So here is Super-Dad! He is building an ambulance bed to go in Justus' fire house room. It's awesome! It will be a bunk bed, so Treston can share a room with him when he gets a little older. It has a trap door that you can lift up and crawl in. Could that be any cooler? Justus talks about this all the time, he's so excited! Super-Dad wanted it to be finished today, so he woke up at 4am and started painting. Yes, it's dark in this picture, not because it's night, but because it's morning. I love my husband!!!

The end result is going to be spectacular! Can't wait!
Happy Birthday Justus! We love you so much!!!

WHY????

Justus' new favorite word.
But every word is precious to us!
Even why, (for now) hundreds of times a day.
Does he really want to know why?
I'm not sure.
But it's as clear as day!
Why?
This is him signing it.
It's so cute.
I also melt when he says something resembling "I love you" while shooting me the gang sign that is supposed to be the ILY sign.
That handshape is impossible for two-year-old, adorable, brown hands.

I marvel at his progress in communication.
I marvel that I don't even know where the spanking spoon is right now.
What I used to perceive as crazy, two-year-old rebellion, I now look back and realize it was 90% pure anger and frustration.
His personality is different!
He is cooperative, delightful, SO stinkin' funny! We are enjoying each other now like we were meant to.
I am overwhelmingly thankful to the Lord for preparing me for this sweet boy by making me fluent in ASL long before I knew he would exist in my life.

WHY???
Because God is good.
He is faithful.
He works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to HIS purpose.
We love Him, and we are called to whatever God puts before us!
Thank you God for Justus!!!

More Signs and more websites...

If you've seen Justus lately, you know he's getting crazy fluent in sign, and has even gained some new words.
There is an even better website I want you to check out. It's http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro This one has a much more extensive video dictionary! Awesome!
I have made a new list of signs that you are almost sure to see if you walk into our home on any given day. Ready?

Loud
Hurt
Gross
Touch
Not (also use for Do not or to negate almost any action)
Dirty (also the sign for dirt)
Diaper
Change
Need
Good
Work
Firefighter (We use a different sign than what's on the website. Make a B handshape, and put it to your forehead, facing thumb out, like the badge on their hats. Justus points to himself and then signs this about 100 times a day. He wants you to know HE'S going to be a firefighter!)
Name Signs:
Justus (Make a J handshape in your hair, on the side of your head, like for curly hair.)
Treston (Make a T handshape, and tap it against your chin a few times)
Emma (Make an E handshape and sign girl with it)
Jax (Justus made this one up himself...tap your index finger to the side of your forehead, like the sign for "think", and then turn it out into an X handshape, in one motion. It's easier than it sounds.)
Mom- sign for Mother
Dad-sign for Father, but Justus baby signs these with just one finger, FYI.

Okay, so now let's put those into Justus sized sentences. This is like a cumulative test.
Practice Sentences:
Justus, please don't touch. (Justus please not touch)
That's too loud! Treston is asleep. (Loud! Treston sleep)
That's yucky! Don't eat that. (gross! not eat)
You need a diaper change. (FYI, I don't sign "dirty" for a dirty diaper, I sign stinky, by just holding my nose. Dirty is not really appropriate for a dirty diaper.)
Does that hurt? I'm sorry! (Hurt? Sorry)
You want a firefighter book?
Where's Daddy? At work. (Daddy Where? Work)
Good job Justus! (Good Work)
Your clothes are dirty. Let's go change. (Clothes dirty. Go change)

Remember, if you sign these things with no expression, it's almost meaningless! Take note of the expressions of the signers on the website. When you meet a deaf person, the expression will almost overwhelm you. But there is grammar built into expression! A deaf person would rather have expression than perfect signs! That's just a side tip when it comes to learning ASL. It also helps with communication with Justus. The more expression he has, the more likely we are to understand what he's signing.
Remember, he still uses baby signs. He doesn't sign these things perfectly. You have to be around him to get used to his signs. But it doesn't take long!
Thanks for those of you really learning! It shows how much you love our sweet boy!

The Lady in the Orange Shirt

Get to know the lady in the orange shirt...

I think we're going to be great friends.

This is the cool new ASL website I found! It has a video clip for an entire dictionary of words! The other websites I found like this you had to subscribe to and pay for. But this one's free!!!! Don't you love free? It is exponentially easier to learn signs from a video clip rather than still pictures. This was a great find! The address is http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm It's a long one, so just add it to your favorites.

I will post a new list of signs very soon, so you can check this out. Those of you learning, keep it up! We have to learn quickly to keep up with Justus! He's amazing. He's putting together three signs at a time easily, when just a few months ago we were at one word utterances only. (And they were limited.) I'm so proud! Our home has changed so dramatically!

Justus is happy!

He makes jokes!

Our Spanking Spoon is not so tired!

He never throws his poop anymore! :)

He tells me what he wants for breakfast!

He tells Rusty things that have happenned in his day!

He knows all his shapes and colors!

He's learning his alphabet!

For all of this, we give great glory to God! He is good!

Signs for the week!

It's time for new signs! Some of you are already asking for them, so good for you guys!

My Mom, the wonderful Nana that she is, is learning quickly, and reminded me how important it is to learn the alphabet. I didn't really think about it, because Justus is not fingerspelling yet, but many signs use the hand shape of certain letters, and it's easier to learn the signs if you know them.

So if you don't really know the alphabet yet, that is a good place to start.

As for a Justus update, he's a super signer. I'm trying to include plenty of signs that he uses daily so that when you visit the Bacak household, you can freely communicate with our little guy. Some of you already are! It blesses my heart like you wouldn't believe!

New Signs:

Where?

Why?

shoes

clothes

get dressed ( it's the sign for clothes 1X, 2X for actual clothes)

popsicle (look at the sign for ice cream, but put up your pointer finger, like the stick in a popsicle)

apple

banana

color

like (as in "I like bananas")

swing (One of Justus' most commonly used signs lately. It's the sign for sit, but you move your hands back and forth, like you're swinging.)

Practice Sentences:

Where are your shoes? (where shoes, eyebrows raised)

I want a popsicle, please. (I want popsicle please)

What color is the apple? (What color apple, what, eyebrows furrowed)

The apple is green. (apple green)

Where are your pajamas (sleep clothes)? (Where sleep clothes, where, eyebrows furrowed)

What color is the truck? (what color truck, what, eyebrows furrowed)

Do you want to jump on the trampoline? (You want jump, jump, jump, eyebrows raised)

I like to swing. (I like swing)

Happy Signing, people! Let me know of any questions you have.