Mason : Home Coming

After 27 hours of traveling we arrived home!!
Mason's first airplane ride went pretty good except for the long flight from China to the States. His ears were really hurting when we went up. I couldn't get him to understand that he needed to either drink water or chew gum. After several minutes of crying his ears finally popped and he settled down. He watched several videos and then asked to see the time. It was 9:00 Beijing time so he told us it was time to go to sleep. He got his pillow, gave us a fist bump ( his way of a kiss goodnight ) and settled in to going to sleep....until he decided to lift his window shade. To his surprise it was still daylight. This was completely confusing to him, so he told us it was not time to go to sleep and started another video. He finally fell asleep and slept the last 3 hours of the trip. He slept through the plane landing which was a blessing because he didn't cry over his ears hurting. We had a hard time waking him and Alan had to carry him off the plane.
He was SO excited when he saw the kids in the Peoria airport. He just kept smiling and showing them all the pictures he took in Guangzhou. I had made a picture book of all his siblings, our dog, and our house so he was very familiar with the kids before we even arrived home. We also did a lot of video chats where he was able to interact with the kids.
Since being home Mason has enjoyed playing with the kids and absolutely LOVES our dog. He has done very well with going to bed and sleeping all night. In fact the first night he was so excited to sleep in his new bed that he jumped into bed without us telling him. The first night he only slept 3 hours but the second night he slept 12 hours. This morning he awoke at 6:00 right before Alan left for work. Alan & I continue to struggle with jet lag and are really looking forward to when our bodies adapt back to the states time.
Thank you to everyone who helped with our kids while we were gone. We really appreciate our family, friends, and church family for helping with childcare, meals, housework, and laundry. It was and still is a blessing to us knowing that our children were taken care of.

Packing to head home....