"I thought it was morning"

We just took our kids on a trip to southern California.  It was their first time on an airplane, to the ocean, to Disney, etc.  As stressful as traveling is with small children, because it is crazy, insanely, stressful (examples including: plane puking, ring-pop disaster, allergic reactions, pee in the kitchen, bee stings, pee in the kitchen again), I love traveling so much more with them, than without them.  Watching your children see beautiful things for the first time, even if you’ve seen them a thousand times before, makes it feel like it is the very first time you yourself has witnessed such incredible places and things.  They don’t even know where they are (our son thought we were in the following places during the span of our trip: China, California, back to China, Chinatown).  They don’t know how far away from home they are, and they don’t know where they are going to sleep.  We typically protect our kids from things like this, which is probably what makes traveling so scary.  If we don’t feel totally secure about everything (the flight, our belongings, food) then how can our children possibly feel safe?  Yet they do!  They are completely in love with the moment, every moment.  They inhale as much joy from each experience as possible, and it completely took me by surprise.  We took the kids to Disneyland with my husband’s sister and her family.  We decided at the last minute to catch the fireworks.  At one point they fired streams of the brightest lights from every corner of the park and the entire sky lit up.  Hayes smiled, eyes wide, and giggled as he said, “I thought it was morning”.  We all laughed, but I keep thinking about how profound that statement was.  We all look for light in the darkness: something beautiful and illuminated to trick our eyes and hearts into believing it’s morning, even if for just a moment.  Sometimes it’s the big things: the vacations, the Disneylands, the cars, the homes, the long adventures, but I think the momentary mornings needed the most, are the small ones: the hugs, the smiles, the laughs, the secrets, cups of coffee, feet in the sand, all of the tiny treasures we collect through the day.  I like to think if we collect them, we can throw them into the sky for our own fireworks show.  Isn’t that all fireworks are anyway?  One blast of light would be great, but what makes it spectacular is the booming and flashing of all of the fire and lights together, overcoming our senses and putting us into awe.  Maybe we need to do that for ourselves every once and a while and simply try to put on a show in our minds and hearts of all that has truly blessed us and then maybe, just maybe, we will think it’s morning, for just a little while, at least.