Yosemite's Real Beauties

So I've told this story a few times, ok, more than just a few, quite a few.  I knew that I should blog about this at the time it happened, but of course I'm the Queen Procrastinator and, well, I just didn't.

But anyway, here it goes now, better late than never.

So back in August we took a family camping trip to Yosemite National Park.  There are about 50 stories I could tell about how beautiful, big, emotionally impressive and breath taking it was, but the most moving story is from our last night there.

The entire time, Claudia was really emotional, in a very good way, she was really intune with what was going on around us, the majesty of it all, and more often than I can recall she'd say something like "oh mom!  it's beautiful!  Jesus made this for us because He loves us right?!"  "yes, baby, He made all this, and made it beautiful, because He loves us."  awwwww.... yes, it really was sweet.

So the last night that we're there, we decide that we wanted to take the kids out of the forest where we were camping, and out to the meadow so they could see all the stars.  We'd brought our bikes, so we took turns, first I headed out with Claudia on my handle bars and in the pitch dark of the night, with the path illuminated with our little flashlights, we rode out of the forest into the starlit meadow and laid down to look up at the stars.

We're laying off the path, in this meadow in Yosemite Valley, cliffs with the Royal Arches on one side, and the forest and more cliffs on the other.  As we look up, you could see the whole universe.  Ok, well not really, but living in southern California, you maybe see 50 stars at night, and in the clear sky up there it was mind blowing how many stars there were.  Claudia was about to cry, again, and she says "momma look!  they're beautiful, and Jesus made them for us because He loves us so much, right?!"  "yes hun, He loves us that much."

We agree that it's not fair to leave Joe and Papa waiting, so we get back on the bike, turn on our flash lights, and head back into the dark forest to our camp.

Claudia briefly tells Darren how beautiful it was, and that she hopes they have fun too, then they take off and we sit down next to our campfire and she cozies up in my lap.

She starts to talk to me about how beautiful it all was, we look up and in the parting of the mass of trees above us, the small break in the canopy lets us see a few stars, just a fraction of what we saw a few minutes earlier, but probably still more than we ever see at home.  She keeps talking, and in a way that is very typical of her storytelling-reminiscing-memory-wandering, she starts to tell me how she missed me when she was still with Marisa, her birth mom.  Of course, she doesn't understand that she didn't actually miss me, that she didn't even know me, but because she's still young she doesn't necessarily 'remember' in chronological order.  I told her that I didn't know her yet and that's why she wasn't with me.  She started to get really sad, emotional at least, saying that she wished she just could have been in my tummy instead.  I had to explain to her that Jesus had a very unique plan for her, and that part of that was to be made inside Marisa's tummy, not mine.  And that Marisa would always have a very special part of her story, she'll always get to be her "tummy mommy", and my special part of her story is to get to be her "family mommy".  

She started to tell me a story about a time when she must have gone on a court appointed visit to see her birth mom.  At the end of the visit Marisa told her it was time to leave and Claudia had started crying saying she didn't want to go, Marisa told her that she had to, that she'd have to go back to Wendy (the temp fostermom at the time).  She was upset that they were taking her away.  Claudia turned and looked at me and said "and she didn't feel bad."  we try to help her to remember these sorts of things with as little negative subjectivity as possible so I said, "you mean she didn't cry?"  

"no, well, maybe on the inside, but I didn't see it"  

"hmmm"

"you would have cried, right mom?  if they were taking me away from you?"

"yes, Claudia, I would have cried if someone took you away."

"okay then"

She smiled, gave me a kiss and then turned back to look at the fire.  For a long time we just sat there, holding each other.  Her probably now thinking about stars, s'mores and bears and all the beautiful things we'd seen in the week we'd been there.  And me thinking about how she'd worked through a painful memory in her past, recognized that although Marisa loves her, something is definitely different about her and the kind of mom she is, and how she realized that although I didn't have her in my tummy, I would have cried if someone tried to take her, and that's the kind of mom she wants, a family mom, a real mom.  

dorothy ain't got nothin' on me.

alright, i know, it's been way too long. things have been busy, chaotic and a little overwhelming lately.

i took thia on a trip back to Lincoln to visit my family. thia did great on the trip, our flights to OMA were pretty uneventful.

the trip itself was fun. minimal family drama, we didn't get in nearly as much as i'd planned, but she got to meet the family and that was, after all, the main goal.

there were some tornadoes with wonderful timing on our way back. on wednesday the 11th we arrived to the omaha airport a little early, 5pm for our 7:39 pm flight. my dad stayed with us until 6:50ish when i was going to need to take thia through security. he left and within minutes we could see things weren't quite right outside. for anyone who's been to OMA you know that there are windows pretty much on all sides of terminal B. on one side, it just looked like dusk, on the other it looked like mid-night. total blackness and you could actually see the point where the darkness took over the light on the horizon.

it wasn't long before they let us know that we would not be departing on time, and it was unlikely that anyone would make connections. shortly after that, due to a tornado warning, we were required to head to the tornado shelter. so i'm sitting in the shelter with thia, of course she can't get down and play on the floor because it's in an employee only section of the airport and not frequently cleaned.

at 9:15 pm they lift the warning and we're allowed to go back upstairs. they let us know that flights will still be leaving, just very late, and no one can expect to make connections.

at midnight thia and i take the flight to denver. at this point it was sleep in OMA or sleep in DEN, we choose DEN. i'm by no means a fearful flier and after years of flying frequently not much bothers me. i must say that this was by far the most turbulent flight i have ever been on.

so we get to denver, have to stay up till 2 to use the kiosk that will let me print a boarding pass for our next flight. by this time thia's wide awake again so we're roaming the terminal looking for snack machines, she's laughing at strangers, i'm trying to wipe mascara residue off of my puffy eyelids. around 3 we find a dark spot between a gate sign and the wall. i unload her blankets from our carry on and we lay on the floor, almost sleeping until 5am when they bustle starts for the first departing flights.

we use the restroom, i make her a bottle, we board our 6 am flight and we leave finally for LAX. she sleeps again pretty much the whole way there.

finally at 7:30 am PDT we make it to LAX where i was thrilled to find my husband, claudia and joe waiting already. we loaded up and made it home. home to a bed that was ready and waiting for me to climb into and take a nap. God Bless my husband.