China Girl

Just a quick post to let everyone know that they arrived safely last night before last at 5:30pm in Newark. We waited anxiously in terminal C. As they came out of customs, my heart started racing. As they walked closer toward us, I could see the top 1/3rd of a little head poking above the suitcases on the cart. Constantin picked Katerina up and walked towards me. She was tiny; smaller than I expected. She was precious. My heart was full of love and anticipation. He placed her in my arms and WHAAAAAAA; she cried and reached back for him. Shot down on the first try! Once they were out of the walkway, he placed her down and she began running all over the airport and heading for the elevator doors as they opened. She looked so adorable – so little, running, running, running – why she’s our own little Forrest Gump.

Once we got to the car, she wasn’t too thrilled to be put into the car seat, but as soon as the car started moving she was content. Constantin told me to put some music on, and sure enough, she started singing.

She was very wary of me at first and backed away each time I came near her. As the evening wore on, she began to tolerate me and even fed me some cheerios. She explored the entire house and played with a few toys. She loved her rocking chair and enjoyed climbing onto it, shaking her little body to make it rock, sliding off of it and started the whole procedure over again.

She went to sleep at 1:30am and woke up at 4am crying. After all, this was just her afternoon nap. Joseph was already up having breakfast and soon Emma joined us in the kitchen. And everyone was accounted for. She went down for her nap at 11:00am and I tried to wake her at 1pm to get her on the right schedule, but she was having none of it. I guess it’ll be a long night tonight. I had grand plans of taking her to the Westchester mall, parking the stroller in the sea of strollers outside City Limits while we had lunch, visiting Aunt Schmabe at Barnes and Noble. But no, it is now 3:30pm and she’s still sleeping. We are going to contact others who have gone through the same experience of bringing a child home from China and adjusting their schedule.

I saw some great photos in the camera which I hope we can download tonight so that I can post them on the Blog. No one brought a camera to the airport, but we took a couple of shots from my phone which I posted above. Once I can post the pictures we'll say Bye Bye to the blog because the real journey is beginning.