The Newest American Citizen

The total travel time to get home was 28 hours, door to door. We are very happy to be at this particular door now!

My husband did ask our last guide, John, if he'd come along home with us to tell us what to do and prepare us for every day's events like he's done for the last week.It has been nice to have a personal adviser to make everything run smoothly. 

The prayers worked. Ruby had a sudden, surprising bout of airsickness, which I fielded pretty well, but only because my husband saw the signs a moment before it happened. That was during the landing of the first of our two flights. At our long layover in Beijing, she got to play on two different indoor playgrounds.

The second, longer flight, was much better than expected. Since she is under two, we opted to get only a lap ticket for Ruby. There weren't many extra seats on the plane, but we were able to switch with a woman and get a row of three seats, which made all the difference.

Ruby spread out to sleep, often in the oddest positions. She tends to wake crying often when she is only sleeping lightly, but then she hit the deeper sleep for several hours. We had only one tantrum on the long flight, which was a huge blessing, though we are getting used to them. We were tallying the tantrums for fun, and I think we reached seven during the whole extra-long day. They didn't get us down, and they were totally understandable since everything was new and strange to her.  One passenger said he felt like throwing a tantrum too.

Ruby became an American citizen while standing at the Passport Desk. The officer whistled while he stamped her paperwork, then he greeted her to the United States. She was pretty dopey at that point, swaying sleepily in my arms.

Being strapped into a car seat for the first time ever at age 23 months is a shock, but she got over it pretty quickly. Her exhaustion helped with that. The drive home was smooth, and we got home at 11:30pm Wednesday, fourteen and a half days after we left.

When we got home we found a wonderful surprise from our church family.  We'll wait to open the presents when the girls arrive with my parents tomorrow afternoon.  Thank you so much for your supportive gifts and all the love that comes with them!

The house also looks cleaner than when I left, so I wonder what elves gave us that present. I imagine a Nana elf was in charge.

I woke Ruby up to bring her into her new home. She's been exploring.  She's been reading. I look forward to the time when she realizes that this is not another hotel room, but her permanent home.