We're HOME!

We traveled yesterday from Moscow and are so glad to back home. The plants in our yard have grown 10 feet tall with all our rain which is good and bad. The good part is that my daisy bushes are almost as tall as I am. The bad part is that the Canadian Thistle, buck thorn and garlic mustard are also almost as tall as I am. I predict many days spent in the yard with the kids playing while I weed.

We said good bye to Toni and John our good friends and to David, our apartment contact. We will miss them all (I actually think that Mia has a crush on David but of course what girl wouldn't love a good Australian accent?).

We arrived at Domo (easier than saying the full name which doesn't sound like it's spelled) via Toni and John's driver, Kachator. He was very nice to us and even managed to scam us a cart for all our luggage (three checked bags, 2 rolling bookbags, 1 bright pink stroller, 1 child that refuses to keep shoes and socks on and 2 women scared about the flight's outcome). Ah ... we were quite the little walking mess and our cart which seemed to have a design flaw with only one wheel on the front kept dumping over. Very exciting.

I left Mom at the entrance to quickly locate American Airlines. Once found, I returned and we wheeled everything over to the business class line. Now, you might be thinking, "oh, how spoiled are they? I'm sure they were whisked right to check-in". WRONG! AA has hired a special security company that utilizes people that don't speak or hear English well who ask you 100 questions to see if you'll 'slip up'. Fortunately, a man eventually relieved the woman that was interrogating ... I mean questioning us and things moved a bit faster as his English was better. Meanwhile, Mia continued to try to take her socks off to see how far they could be thrown across the airport adding to the fun of the 'interview'.

We eventually made it to the counter to check in. Apparently child tickets are more challenging than adult tickets and caused our agent a lot of difficulty. For those who will travel after us, child tickets for AA are paper while your tickets are not so make sure you pull out the ticket for them. I had forgotten during the three weeks that we actually had a paper ticket amongst all our stuff. With the help of a more senior AA employee, Julia finally was able to print out our tickets and we were on our way much lighter than before. We started out to find the business lounge. We were immediately joined by Galina, a very nice AA employee who offered to escort us to the business lounge. I'm sure that we appeared disoriented and AA probably thought this was necessary to make sure we made it to the right place. She led us up to the business / first passport control where we waited in line.

For our first adoption, the agent had really put us through our paces. He wanted the passport, boarding card and all the extra pieces of paper that the Embassy had given us. As we waited and pulled everything out of our folder, we noticed a man 'fail' the passport control line and be escorted somewhere. That's scary. His friend asked if he should wait to which he got no response. Also scary. It was our turn next. The women at passport control really don't speak any English and they look like the don't want to either. Their sleeves are covered with various military / Russian medals which looks cool in kind of a frightening way. She eventually threw on the green light and we were good to go. (For those of you coming after us, you will need both your and your child's passport plus your boarding card at this gate. They can ask you for adoption decree, etc. as well so have those in your carry on luggage. I bought a multi-compartment hefty green plastic folder for this purpose which is very handy as your documents won't get wet if it rains. Note that you're hefty big manilla envelope will probably not fit inside a normal 8 1/2 by 11 folder as it's a pretty big envelope). We both purchased rolling LL Bean back packs and they proved to be our hero during this journey as a stroller and a baby are about all you can handle.

We then proceeded to the business lounge. Mia decided that she wasn't going to eat anything except bread for the day. We think that she's gotten used to having unlimited cheerios and Gerber fruit puffs and has decided that girls can live on snacks alone. She drank a bit and I gave her some benadryl about an hour before take off. For those of you traveling afterwards, I can't stress the importance of Benadryl enough. You'll want to test it out on your child prior to flying as some children have an opposite reaction which wouldn't be good to discover on the plane.

Our flight home was really peaceful. Mia was fussy for about 30 minutes during take off and leveling out then we created a bed on the floor for her and got her off to sleep. She slept for the whole trip and woke just as we needed to get her up for our descent. Guess we paid our dues with Sasha although we hope an easy flight home doesn't mean a nightmare here. I have now seen every movie that has been released within the last 6 months. I'm sure that's good as my movie watching days are now officially over :)

Once off the plane, we headed to a bathroom to change her into her "Go USA" outfit. Passport control was very quick and we were directed to secondary holding where we were the only customers. The officer looked through our hefty big manilla envelope and, once satisfied that this represented more work than most people would possibly do for almost anything, he stamped her passport, stamped the stack and said, "Welcome to the United States". Magical words. I would have teared up had Mia not decided to whip her patriotic barette to the floor and pitch one of her strappy white sandals across the room. The girl is determined to go barefoot and unadorned! (Note: He did not have the proper "wow, this little girl is SO patriotic reaction". Very disappointing!).

We were told to enter the agriculture random search line where irritated people (randomly selected out of the customs line) have to put their bags on another scanner to be checked. A older gentleman allowed us into the line and we thanked him profusely (he was the only nice passenger on this plane I think). The officer looked at us, asked if we were adoption and then told us to go right on through, no need to check our bags. YEA! We exited into ORD to discover that our greeting party was at the other entrance so we snuck up behind them. There was a bouquet of red, white and blue welcome home balloons and a banner welcoming Mia to the U.S. that my good friend, Chris, and her daughter Jacquie had made for the occasion. Sasha ran up and gave me the biggest hug ever. I started tearing up. I knew I had missed him but hadn't realized just how much until I saw him. I'm convinced that he grew 6 inches during my month away from him. Wow .. he's almost as tall as Baba and I swear his foot is as big as hers!

Mia was a bit overwhelmed by the attention and Sasha waved at Mia and tried to give her a hug. So cute. Our son, Sasha, is one of the sweetest little boys. He's ALL boy but loves to snuggle and give hugs. He's a total sweetie. He's also learning how to cook so I'm convinced he'll be an amazing catch for some girl ... a long, LONG time from now :)

Sunday Mia cried on and off all night and got up at 4 a.m. She ate some cereal but was VERY crabby (I'm hoping this is a combination of teething pain, new environment and not enough sleep). She is having adjustment challenges and, based on our experiences in Moscow, she HATES riding in a car seat. I know that she'll get over this as Sasha used to hate riding in car seats when he first arrived as well. She also cried a TON. At the apartment, we had seen some improvements in this area but I'm sure the new environment and the day long travel had set her back again.
On Sunday, we had a big seafood boil and Bryan, her future Godfather and the Godfather to Sasha came over. Nathan bought a kiddie pool and a slip and slide which Sasha was SO excited about playing with but it rained all afternoon much to his disappointmet. I'm sure it will take time before Mia appreciates water. She screams bloody murder during bath time. It's almost as though she thinks she might melt. This was certainly not Sasha's reaction!

On a positive note, Mia is not afraid of Blake. Blake, on other hand, can not BELIEVE that we brought home ANOTHER one. He had just gotten Sasha trained and now we introduce this one. He thinks a new boxer puppy, preferably a female, would've been a smarter choice. He tries to lick Mia which she tolerates well until the foot bath starts. She's not very fond of non-stop toe licking apparently.

On Monday, Mia seems in a much better mood. She woke up at 5 a.m. so that's an improvement. She ate a full breakfast and is in her Audrey Hepburn dress so she looks totally cute. I have to admit that I was worried that Sasha would have a struggle with sharing with a new child but so far he's been awesome. My folks are here until Friday so I'm sure that's helping get everybody plenty of attention.

We're settling in to life at home. I know it's going to be a challenge once the extra help goes home but I'm looking forward to enjoying some summer days with the pool, the slip and slide, the kiddos and Blake Christensen.