We Are Home!

We made it! The LOOOOONG flight was, well, long, but it really wasn't too bad. In fact, the first 8 hours went by pretty fast. Caitlin slept a good deal of the way, but by the last 3 hours I was getting restless, especially with her being on my lap the whole way, and Caitlin was having a hard time getting comfortable so she was getting restless as well. She wanted to get down on the floor, but we were going through some turbulence at the time so she had to stay on my lap. She threw a few little tantrums, but eventually went back to sleep.

As we were descending she suddenly woke up, sat straight up, and started screaming. I guess her ears were bothering her. I gave her some Cheerios, and luckily that seemed to do the trick because the screaming immediately stopped.

Once we landed, we went through Immigration and Customs. We took some pictures of Caitlin touching U.S. soil (she is officially now a U.S. Citizen!!),
then met up with our good friend Avril (who flew back from Georgia, landed late last night, didn't get home until 2 AM, then turned around and drove the 2 hours back up to the airport early this morning to be there when we got back), and my mom (who also flew in from Georgia yesterday, took the bus down to our town, then got up early this morning to drive the 2 hours back up to the airport with Avril).It was so great to have familiar faces to greet us- and it was so wonderful to see them both!
As expected, Caitlin did not think too much of her carseat at first. She screamed bloody murder for a half hour or so. It was also the middle of the night her time, and the poor kid was exhausted! I was afraid she would scream the whole way home (2+ hours), but she did eventually settle down; she even seems to enjoy her carseat now!

We got home, and Avril's husband, Matt, had put a stork and balloon in our yard:It was so cute! He and baby Isabella were here to greet us. We got to talk for a little bit, then Matt, Avril and Isabella headed home and we settled in. Since it was still only about noon, we had a lot of time to kill before we could go to bed! Caitlin took a nap, and Paul and I snoozed a little, but we didn't want to sleep too much. It was a long afternoon, but we made it!

Caitlin seemed to relax more and more as the day went on. She definitely seems to know the difference between her home and a hotel room! She played with some of her toys, and even let me put her in her high chair to eat dinner! Now I can eat without little fingers grabbing at my food, my fork, my glass...

Caitlin was fascinated with Libby from the very beginning. As long as Libby kept her distance, she was not afraid at all. I'd worked a lot with her to try to prepare her; I'd sent lots of pictures of Libby to her in the orphanage, and we went through them a lot while still in China. And every time we saw a dog in China we'd talk about it. Anyway, as long as Libby didn't come close to her (which would cause a tantrum), she would laugh at Libby- and even try to bark at her! I'm so relieved! I was so afraid they would not get along, but so far, so good!

A neighbor brought us dinner (thank you Nohemi!), then we headed to bed. Caitlin woke up crying at 10:15, 10:45, then woke up screaming at 11:45, 12:15, 12:45, and so on. Finally, at 2:15, it became apparent that she was not going to sleep, so I took her downstairs, made her a bottle, let her watch Libby for awhile (Libby was all too happy to put on a show for her newest fan; it would have been really cute, had it not been almost 3:00 in the morning!), then I finally managed to rock her back to sleep. She slept until 9:30 AM from there!

I wanted to take a minute to thank my good friend Mandi for all that she did to help keep my blog going while we were gone. I would not have been able to do it without her! I could post from my e-mail, but it wouldn't let me add pictures, and I know that the pictures were really what everyone wanted! Mandi is in the middle of moving to a new house, yet she took time every day to take my entries and pictures, which I would e-mail to her, then post them all to the blog, even inserting the pictures in the appropriate places. Mandi, you are AMAZING! Thank you so much!!!