We Survived and are Back!

I do not recommend 24 hours of traveling with a two-year old but sometimes there are no alternatives and the great news is we are back and it is over! We arrived 8-ish pm Thursday evening at Dulles airport and unfortunately had a rather long line to get through Customs. And although the Chinese had a civilized process at their airport that allowed Libby and I to go straight up to a special handling fast line (based on our obvious handicap), there was no such special treatment at Dulles. Well, that is until we had been in the line for "too long", Libby's "good" was "used up", and I had run out of any form of diversion. At that point I adopted a sort of "go for it Libby" attitude and miraculously a nice customs gentleman came up to me rather quickly and escorted us to the front of the line. I suppose we were making a bit of a scene. If I'd allowed that a bit sooner I might have been able to avoid the lovely bite mark on my upper arm! Oh well! :) Libby is doing pretty good with all the adjustments and transitions. She likes to swing on the front porch swing and she and Andrew are starting to interact a lot and have fun. It is a bit challenging for Andrew to have a little one getting so much attention so we keep telling him what a great big boy he is and that we want Libby to copy his behavior (and not the other way around - which naturally happens some because she gets attention!). In China I think eating was our hardest time. At home, sleeping is now our hardest time. It helps a lot to have our own high chair, plastic bowls, and constant access to food, drinks, and snacks. But add jetlag to the sleeping process and that has been harder. Last night she did sleep all through the night so hopefully we are on the way toward improvement. The hard times now are getting her down to sleep. This is not unusual. One of the "experts" on adoption noted that during the day the kids can stay distracted with all the activities and new happenings but naps and night time allow them quiet time without diversion and they get back caught up in all that is happening to them. Below are some travel pictures, including our guide Becky, and a link to a discussion of adoption transition issues (just fyi). http://chinaadopttalk.com/2006/11/14/the-not-so-rosy-part/