Home again, home again...

Well, all you pray-ers, your prayers were answered!  Call me amazed!  We survived 28 hours of traveling with Nathan, without major event.  He stuck with us in the airports, he sat on the airplane like a champ, he didn't need to be constantly entertained, he napped, he obeyed us, etc.  The last 3 hours of our Beijing to NYC leg were difficult, because he was exhausted and couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep well.  He was sort of in la-la land, half asleep, half crying, kicking around, falling off the seats, etc.  He finally fell asleep across our laps.  Once we landed, the lady behind us told us how good he was on the trip and how she didn't even know he was there!  Oh, my, after spending 2 very lively weeks with Nathan in China, I sort of felt like pinching myself to see if I was imagining this comment from the stranger behind me!

Immigration at JFK was a breeze.  So different than when we came in at Miami for our girls 8 years ago, where we sat in a room for a couple of hours with our 'brown envelope' waiting to be processed by an unfriendly INS staff.  Missed our connecting flight thanks to that and got home a day late!    This time, the staff members were helpful and friendly and the whole process took about 3 minutes.

We came home to a very clean house (thanks, Louise, Mary, Trisha and Vania!)  All the kids were happy to see us and show Nathan around the house.  He seemed very happy to meet his sibs and they have been great with him so far.  He will need to learn that some things are off limits, but overall, he is doing great- not bouncing off the walls or anything.  He seems much calmer and we've seen an awful lot of smiles.  I was concerned about bedtime, esp. with the jet lag/messed up body clock we are all dealing with, plus the fact Nathan has always shared a bed with someone, but even bedtime went OK. I think having 3 of his brothers in the room with him helps.  I read some picture books to the littles, including Nathan, tucked him in, did my best to explain that if he needed anything all he had to do was call 'mama'.  Of course, he immediately started calling, 'mama' over and over, the wisenheimer.  He had trouble falling asleep, so I put on a CD of Chinese folk stories for him.  After this finished, he came in our room, so I took him back to bed and laid down with him.  He fell asleep after about 5 minutes and back to bed I went.  He managed to sleep till about 6 am when he started making a good bit of noise in the boys' room, so we brought him into our bed for a little while.  I then took him downstairs and fed him.  Shortly, all the littles were awake, and the fun began.  They have been playing all morning.  I hope the honeymoon lasts for at least a week...the kids are off school for the next week so hopefully we can lie low and keep things as boring and low key as possible for Nathan.  Not that it is ever too boring around here.

I feel almost human after 6 hours of sleep.  Maybe I'll even be able to go for a run today!