Ok, probably by far the coolest photo of Chan happened today, and I didn't have my camera ready! He signed his own Departure Card from his home country...in Chinese. Bitter/Sweet site - he used his suitcase as his desk, David motioned to sign, I pointed to the line and said, "Write An Dongbin." He looked up at both of us and smiled, shook his head then cranked out some cool looking Chinese characters- His name! It will always be his name even though he has a new American name. We call both of our youngest their Chinese names often, and I love that!
Thursday, March 27-5:45pm China time (Thursday, 5:45 am EST)
6:15 pm update: Ok, wow...so how does one explain to your not-so-fluent-English-speaking-pretty stinkin' cute-getting to sit up front- son there's been a maintenance delay and we are taxiing back to the gate in Beijing??? Give him the iPad!!! I so don't normally let the kids stay on electronics too much but it has seems to bridge the language barrier for short term (and taught him "please and share"!). How does one tired mama try to relax when I know our case workers are probably wondering if we made it onto our flight and my parents and sis are trying to make it to our city to welcome us home, but their flights are pretty much shot, too? Hmmmm... Haven't figured that out yet-lol. Guess I should take some deep breaths and let it go, huh?!? Oh, dear Lord... Give us some rest, make a connecting flight, oh, give us all some rest.
As I type (not when this posts), we are sitting waiting for our plane to get a look over again. Just a tad irritated bc we are so tired and want to get home, but I need to get over that, too! Better safe than sorry when about to embark on another 12 hour flight (or even a 12 minute flight!) in a metal tube across the pond with all my loved ones! I'm ready to take my ambien, put my face mask on/earplugs in and...zzzzzzzzzzz. OH! and wake up at my doorstep. No, actually... in my own bed ;-)
7:15 pm: Now, one of the flight attendants who speaks Chinese is explaining to him what's happening-YAY!!!!!!! He is just grinning from ear to ear now! Why did the languages have to be mixed so many years ago :-)
The flight attendant is bragging on him for being so polite- another yay! He really has done so well when it's our family, on the bus, on the subway, or on the airplane, but get him in our travel group, and he's just way overstimulated. I do have to admit in getting pretty good at charades, and I'm sure the hidden camera are laughing often! Last night I scored a winner: pizza-shower-sleep-eat rice-bus-feiji (airplane)- woohoo!!!! He totally understood the chain of events and jumped up and down. About 30 minutes later, on his own initiative signed "airplane" and said, "Mei-gwa" (not sure how you spell the pinyin but he was saying, "We fly on the airplane to America."- success. He understands.
7:35 pm: captain has explained what the maintenance issue is. Shame on me for being impatient when I pray constantly for our safety and David's safety when he's in charge. I guess my lack of sleep is slightly effecting my brain!! Kids are happy as clams- all three of them. Ok, wow...did I just say that? THREE of them? (Never in my wildest dreams!). My two youngins think it's cool they just turned on the tv screens (only t-mobile and magazine adds-ha!).
7:45 pm: someone en route to airport to fix the part- I'm thinking we will be here awhile. Praise God we have a pillow, and we are not sitting on the concrete bench in the airport. (Fair assumption we are not making our connecting flight.) Bigger, better, safer plan! I'm good with that.
When we first got on this plane, Chan went straight to the back. Skipped the front seats- totally oblivious of how nice it was/is. I motioned to him where to sit, and he fretted (seriously. He has no clue that a silver platter is about to be handed over to him!). He frowned at the fluffy blanket and pillow. What imagery that is for me! Isn't that we as Believers do so many times? We grump at God's direction and don't have a clue what kind of blessings He has in store! (Ok, oops...guilty of that about two hours ago. Ahem...). It's now 8:09 pm, and I'm loving seeing how's he's responding to everything once he trusted me where to sit! Pushing all the buttons, laughing, smiling, reclining the seat, telling the flight attendant about his mei mei (little sis Audrey An) and jie jie (big sis Abigail)...aaaaand fluffing his pillow. Mind exploding!
Bit of a contrast: small farming village to....
Mei mei's loving it...
And so is jie jie!!!
9:30 pm getting ready to take off (4 hours later)
10:45pm... Dinner and trying to interpret "soup" for Chan. I can say rice in Chinese...so he knows THAT'S coming- yay, new mommy!! Kim and family... I need you to translate!
6:00am somewhere! (I guess it's technically 6PM EST in the States right now!) I think we all got some sleep I hope my family made it our house, but I hope they realize we will not be at our final destination as hoped! This will post once I have wifi and promise it will be after our hoped arrival. At this point, I don't know when we will arrive!
10pm EST... Just landed in Detoit. Now to figure out to get home!
11:15pm, Thursday night (again) everyone is "benadryled"...in Detroit! ONE MORE LEG on Friday and we will be home! Praying all goes well, and we land Friday at noon!
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