April 16-the second time around

Shortly after 11 PM, we boarded our flight from Hong Kong to LAX. We were traveling on this flight with 5 other families from our original group. We booked a seat for Chloe, so we had three seats for us to "stretch out" in.

Like all the other families, we kept Chloe awake until the flight departed and gave her some children's Benadryl before boarding the plane. She quickly drifted off to a restless sleep, but Pete and I had to stay awake to keep her from falling out of the seat. She tossed and turned for 8 hours straight and wasn't too happy, even though she was mostly asleep.

After 8 hours, she awoke. We did our best to keep her entertained and let her move around as much as is possible in a fixed seat. Chloe kept us so busy that we didn't watch any of the movies (there appeared to be some good ones this flight) and by the final hour, Chloe was becoming very unhappy. She would scream, throw her head back and arch her back. It was nearly impossible to hang onto her. We walked her around a little bit, but she had had enough. As landing approached, I had to strap her in the special child seat belt they provide. This made her very unhappy and she screamed through the remainder of the flight. By this time, most people were no longer trying to sleep and the other babies on the flight were acting up as well. I was so grateful that this flight was only 12 hours as compared to our nearly 15 hour flight to go to China.

We arrived in America two and a half hours before we left Hong Kong. Yes it was still April 16th and it had been a very long day. For us, even though we were tired, it was morning time in China and we were wide awake, including Chloe. We spent about an hour waiting in immigration to get our daughters approved. Then it was a quick walk through customs and our ride was waiting for us at 11:30 PM just outside the departure area.

It would have been nap time for Chloe in China, so I decided that I would try to put her to sleep in the car seat. This would be her first experience in one, and given her aversion to being restrained, I was afraid we would have a long two-hour drive home. Pete made us a bottle and I could tell Chloe was hungry and sleepy. As I put her in the seat, I immediately gave her the bottle and she settled in for a meal and immediate nap that lasted the whole drive home.

We arrived home around 1:30 AM on Sunday morning, April 17th. We were still awake, so we just sort of unloaded everything and introduced Chloe to the house and Sammy and Marty. Sammy is the Shetland Sheepdog and Marty is our cat. She wasn't very interested in either one.

It was about 5 AM before we finally drifted off to sleep. Chloe didn't last in the crib for more than an hour, so I brought her into the guest bed and we napped together for about 4 or 5 hours.
The rest of Sunday was a blur.

Sorry, still no pictures. We are too tired.