Anyway on to the update! It was a rough trip home. We started by waking up at 5:00 a.m. in China. Our first flight was from Guangzhou to Shanghai which went well. We then had several hours to kill before our flight from Shanghai to Chicago. We had to reclaim our baggage and then wait about an hour to recheck it for the international flight. Once that was accomplished we set out to eat our last “official” meal in China which was at the airport Burger King…yummm (Allison said sarcastically). Aiden did not get a nap the entire day which at the time we thought was a good plan for the long flight from Shanghai to Chicago and hoped he would sleep the entire way home….oh how wrong we were!!! He was still exhibiting good behavior when we boarded the flight and continued to behave for a while before it all came to a screeching halt. He started crying and just would not go to sleep. And then the crying developed into more of a screaming and continued for at least four hours straight…my mom says it was five hours but who is counting right? I tried everything possible to quiet him and get him to sleep to no avail. He finally feel asleep in my arms sometime in the fifth or sixth hour of the flight but not before I seriously considered opening the emergency exit door and leaping to my death! Once we arrived in Chicago, we had to collect our bags (again) and go through customs and immigration. Aiden officially became a citizen of the United States in the great city of Chicago…I am sure his Aunt Lisa would have liked to indoctrinate him to Chicago by taking him shopping on the Magnificent Mile but there was no time for that! We then rechecked our bags again and waited for our flight from Chicago to Tampa. We finally boarded our final flight and Aiden slept the entire time. I cannot begin to describe how nice it was to see our cheering crew once arriving in Tampa!!! Angelo, his dad, Lisa, Brent and Chas were all there with toys and balloons to welcome us back! Ahhh…what a wonderful feeling!
It was great to be back home and in my own bed! I really missed Angelo and my dogs. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to recover. We got back late on November 5th and I had wedding stuff to get done before the 14th! It was like being at the races…ladies and gentleman, start your engines! I tried to finish most of everything before I left for China but there is always something that needs to be changed or finalized. Everything went really well and we had a beautiful wedding. It was fabulous to see everyone!
Tomorrow will mark the one month anniversary of being home! I can’t believe we have been back a month already – time has definitely flown by! It was kind of a busy month though with the wedding, Turkey day and all! Aiden is continuing to adjust really well and really seems to love his new home. He likes to go in and out of his bedroom all day long mostly playing with his toys although we have caught him in there on numerous occasions quietly reading his books. When we first came back from China, he really wanted nothing to do with sitting in my lap and reading and seemed to not have the faintest idea of what the books were for. It was a quick transformation though and he now LOVES it! We have read the same books over and over and he now knows what is coming in several of the books. He has one book where there is a momma in it and he is quick to point her out to you. And he loves seeing Cookie Monster in the books and will always say “yum, yum, yum” when he sees him. Last night, I read “Shaoey and Dot: Bug Meets Bundle” to him which was new for him…not for me. I have read the book on many occasions thinking I would someday be reading it to my daughter. (My how there was a different plan in store for us!) For those of you who do not know the book, it was written by Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis Chapman. It is the story that they have written for their first of three adoptive daughters about a ladybug that finds a baby in China and stays with her throughout her journey to meet her new family. I had no idea that I would be as affected by reading this story to Aiden as I was last night. I have definitely thought and wondered over and over about what the first two years of his life were like before I was lucky enough to meet him but I think this was the first time I really thought about the intricate details of his life thus far…. him being left in the hospital to be found, who found him, what his birth mother must have felt, why she had to leave him and how it must have been a difficult and heartwrenching decision for her to give him after having him in her arms for six weeks, what he witnessed in the orphanage, how the nannies (ayis) treated him, if anyone comforted him when he was upset or sick, etc. Needless to say I was unable to get through the book without stopping several times to regain my composure. This child is so amazing and I am elated that I can call him my son but I am sad for his birth mother and all that she will miss.
To recap and celebrate our first month home, I’ll leave you with some pictures of all of our activities for the past month.
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