Home, Chopped Liver and Continuing to Charm

2:15 p.m. (Friday) North Carolina

Yes, we're home.  Still recovering from jet lag (re-entry as I call it).  It's like having a bad hangover.  Meiying seems to be fairing much better than Mom.  She's going non-stop all day.  She and I still aren't sleeping through the night yet, but that doesn't seem to slow her down during the day.  I'm uploading some of the latest pictures to Shutterfly.

She did great on the flights.  Bravely took my hand and let me lead her through 4 airports, 3 airplane rides; what a trooper!  A little Benadryl and Melatonin on the 13 hour flight helped her sleep for a few hours.  Otherwise, each time I started to doze off, she would turn up the volume on my headset as loud as she could and laugh at herself. 

It was soooo good to land at JFK and even though we had another flight still ahead of us, I felt like I was home.  As we were landing, the song that was playing thru my headphones from the airplane "radio" was Moon River.  One of my dad's favorites.  I immediately started tearing up.  Meiying even got to witness me getting into a little NY'er fight when a young "punk" of a kid cut in line right in front of me while waiting at the security check.  We already had been waiting and waiting; so I had to bring out my ugly NY'er inside of me.  Ah, it felt good.  I bought her an "I love NY" snowglobe since it was her first landing in America.

We arrived in NC a bit early.  I had to wake her and she was very shy when meeting everyone.  Still shy and somewhat shell shocked when we got home, we all sat up with her for a while playing Jenga and just letting her take everything in.  Eliza  played coy with me at first until she locked eyes with me, then she started squeezing my neck as hard as she could.  It never felt so good to be hugged, be home and hear english being spoken!  We arrived home to beautiful, cool, crisp early autumn NC weather too.  My favorite!

Eliza's been a bit whiney and not too sure about this charming, spunky sister who arrived in the house.  She watches her a lot and has a not too pleasant expression on her face.   She had a little fit at bedtime last night, not wanting Meiying to be in the room.  They finally warmed up to each other in the bathtub this a.m. and I got some great pictures and video of that.

Other than all of that, Meiying has been charming everyone.  She's in love with her daddy and he is the MAN!  Mom is now chopped liver.  That's great with me though, I love watching them interract and am enjoying the respite.   She has even replaced me in the front passenger seat of the car.  She has to be up front watching everything and sitting co-pilot with Daddy.  They've already ridden on the big John Deere together and she's already gotten her first bike w/ training wheels and is loving that.  She is scared of the dogs; though she calls for them constantly and "throws" them treats instead of getting too close to hand them to the dogs!  She has been fattening up my cats w/ bowls of milk all day long and everytime she gets something to eat, she ends up taking it outside to feed to the chicken.  She plays outside all day; in and out, in and out, in and out!  She's having a blast.  Happy, happy, happy.  She only teared up once and that was the first night home, she woke at 4:00 a.m. and I think she was just scared and disoriented.  She immediately became happy again when I brought her downstairs and she started exploring all of Eliza's toys.

The house was so clean and nice when I came home.  Derek did a great job being Mr. Mom and even steam-cleaned the carpet in the living room.  It's a wreck now though.  Meiying is a whirlwind as she explores everything!  We're all doing well and having lots of fun.  She hasn't missed a beat and other than her fear of the dogs, I'd say that she loves being home and on the farm.  More updates when I can "focus" long enough without the room spinning.  (I remember this last time too...it's an awful feeling for me.)