Security check here was different than anywhere else. All electronics had to come out of the bags, which basically meant emptying an entire bag! Then, they had Baby Girl taste all of her baby food! I packed the squeezable baby foods for her on the plane. All were new and still sealed packed in my quart size ziplock, but they made me open the food and have her taste it. Well, once you give a baby food, you better not take it away! I somehow managed to hide 2 baby bottles in my diaper bag that they did not find! One, I wrapped up in her blanket and they just moved the blanket around without taking it out. The second one was zipped in a side pouch that they missed! Thank you, Lord! They made me dump out her water sippy cup and I think I would have cried right there had they made me dump out her bottles! In the states, you can travel with a baby bottle, but we learned that China won't let you (unless you hide it!).
What was supposed to be a 12.5 hour flight to DC ended up being a 15 hour trip because we sat in the plan, at our original gate for 2.5 hours before we were cleared for take off. This was agonizing realizing that we were more than likely going to miss our connecting flight home and there wasn't one thing we could do about it. Baby Girl did really well on this flight as well! So much better than I expected after her very first flight from Gansu. Thanks for all of the prayers! I did have to do a good bit of walking the aisles of the plane to try to get her to sleep, but I didn't mind as long as she wasn't crying! She didn't sleep a whole lot. Maybe 3 hours total, and that was 3 hours of restless sleep. But, she was pretty happy for the most part, so it was bearable!
Once we landed in DC, Baby Girl was officially a US Citizen! This was a happy moment for sure! She is now an American! We had to take a bus to the customs terminal, clear customs with an officer who clearly was in no hurry, claim our baggage once again, drop it off in hopes of getting it on the plane to Nashville, run to the only security check point open with only one lane open, run about 10 minutes to our gate only to find out we missed our flight by about 10 minutes. We knew it was going to be a close call, but we also knew that we didn't have enough formula or diapers to make it through till the next morning.
The guy working the counter offered us a flight leaving in 15 minutes to Knoxville instead, so we took that flight and had my wonderful sister working on securing us a rental car to drive the extra 3 hours from Knoxville to Franklin. Only one glitch left! I left the baby bag at the security check point! The officer had pulled it off the table to run it through again and I left without realizing it! This was not an item we could just leave behind since it had her last bottle and diaper in it. So, I had to run the 10 minutes back to the security check point and beg for my bag! Here I am sweating and panting and the guy won't give me my bag since it was abandoned. I'm trying my best to describe my dire need to make the flight that was leaving immediately but he insisted on getting his supervisors approval before handing it over to me. And where was this supervisor?? In the bathroom, taking his sweet time!! AGHH! I paced and paced. Someone finally went to go get the obviously constipated gentleman and he gave a quick approval for me to take my belongings. I had to run faster back to the gate and saw that everyone had loaded the plane but my family! They were just waiting on me! Thank you, Lord, that they held the plane and were so patient with us!
Baby Girl was over traveling at this point and fussed on and off the whole hour to Knoxville and most of the ride to Franklin. Who could blame her??! I wanted to cry myself to sleep too after our long day trying to get home! Since we were so late getting home, we waited till Thursday morning to let the boys meet their new sister! We were up at 7 am and CR and Baby W (who needs a new nickname!) were the first ones down to come see her! She loved playing with them and they loved playing with her! Little E was next to come down and had his fun with her as well! W is already super protective of Baby Girl! He doesn't like to hear her cry and wants to be with her all the time. He came and slept with us on Thursday night and rubbed on BG whenever he heard her cry! So far, he is loving her, though I can tell he needs some extra loving himself as well!
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| Happy Girl! |
This time change stuff is pretty brutal! Baby Girl is up all night long ready to play, play, play! I am a zombie and the girls are crashing in the middle of the day and up with me at 3 and 4 in the morning! Today, we are trying to push ourselves to stay up, but I know that I have to be up at night as well, so its hard to tell when I should sleep. We are home though, and its summer break!! So, some lazy days are in order and the TV just might come on a little more than normal!
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