Thursday, May 2, 2013

Hanging out in Texas, the night before.

Wednesday May 1st @ 10:20PM at the G Bush Airport in Houston

So here is how we started our travels..



Nothing cool has happened yet, we just fine ourselves with a few hours of “free” time as my sons are sleeping soundly on the ground in preparation for our red eye flight that leaves at midnight.

We left this afternoon from our home in Lee Summit, driven by the lovely Laura Wissel.. her Odyssey handled her kids, our kids, us, and all our junk like a real champ. Lucas and Ben were hyper at the airport and for the first flight. Not gonna lie.. there was a moment while I was trying to feed them when I almost burst into laughing tears at the audacity that we are on a flight to get ANOTHER little boy!! To add to the current insanity at THIS table. Today, we were the reason some people don’t want to have kids. Good thing they are very cute and sociable at Quiznos. “What you eating?” “Why?” “Why you here?” “Who is that? Is that your friend?” “But what YOU eating? Why?” “I don’t want ‘matoes!!” “I don’t want cheese!!” and my favorite “I only toot. It’s okay Mommy”. Ted got the harder end of the deal on the flight, but it wasn’t THAT bad. The pilot started his descent earlier than my calculation and without the normal announcement, so there was about 10 minutes there when I was sure we were going to die. I fly a lot too. I think there is something about actual adoption flights that make me just sure that this is when it is all going to end.

Anyway, I digress.

I must tell you, none of this feels particularly “real”. Here are a few reasons why that is perhaps:

1. We don’t have a lot of time to sit around and day dream about the little babe waiting for us. We just spent the past day trying to keep the 2 children already in our custody from making people not want to have kids anymore.

2. We do a fair amount of traveling to other countries as part of life.

3. We pack little boys for traveling a lot. Yesterday I just happened to pack for 3 of them instead of 2.

4. 6 months ago, we hadn’t even applied yet.

5. There are so many hoops in this process, and so many things that could go wrong either resulting in something failing or significantly delaying your dreams, that one doesn’t want to invest a lot of ones soul until right about.. nowish.

Here are my current 2 little boys camping out.



So now “now” is actually happening. We are waiting for our final flight to Bogota. The papers have come together. The bags are packed. The home is closed up. As far as we know, Sam will be in our arms sometime tomorrow afternoon after we have had a few hours to settle in at El Refugio.

I’m starting to wonder if things won’t feel real until the first morning when we wake up in our room at El Refugio and he pops his little head up out of his crib and looks at me with expectation.


Here is the other side of the story… Even though so much of this is a surprise to me, it’s not a surprise to God. God new that Sam needed a family.. and he gently persuaded me early in November to start our paperwork earlier rather than later in the spring “just in case” so that someone wouldn’t have to wait for ME.. because knowing that a little person was ready to go and had to sit there waiting for me would have been very hard for me to handle during the paperwork process. Luckily, that was only the case for a few months when the papers were well underway and I was waiting for things to come back.

I had LOTS of fun yesterday packing his cute little tshirts and his cute little overalls and his cute little new shoes… with his cute little jacket and his his cute little blue polo that will match his big brothers’ tomorrow. We have actually been diaper free for a few months at our house, and that was fun to pack some little diapers again! And silicone sippy cups.. and little Spanish books.


So I took a walk tonight, final Starbucks coffee in hand, just taking all of this in. How good God is and how He loves Sam. How lucky I am to be able to parent the children that have been gifted to me. How I could possibly look like I’ve been hit with multiple shovels a few months from now when I’m back home and don’t have all of the housework help I get at El Refugio..

It is a big day tomorrow. That is for sure.


1 comment:

  1. what a wonderful journey you are on and its so beautiful that your boys get to come along too!!

    ReplyDelete