We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship...

A week ago today we were “zooming through the skies” to our new home in China.  As we expected, Rowan was the most challenging of the crew.  I had visions of him curling up in my lap to sleep the night away, but that proved too lofty a goal.  Instead, he watched hours on end of the same plane-provided videos, said “no” as often as he could, refused to wear his seat belt, and cried when he was in the mood.  Meanwhile, Dave was sitting across the aisle between Reid & Riley who were contentedly playing games, watching videos, and enjoying the view of Canada and Russia.  I’m pretty sure I got the short end of the stick on that one!  All together the boys got a total of about two hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, while Dave and I snuck in a few cat naps.  We flew from Norfolk to Detroit, were laid over in Detroit several hours, and then flew 14 hours to Shanghai.  Suzhou is more than an hour away from Shanghai, so once we got our 500 bags loaded into two vehicles and got on the road, all but Reid fell asleep pretty quickly.  The worst part of the flight was probably taking Ro to the bathroom.  Airplane bathrooms are just gross (especially on hour 12), and it’s hard to convince a grumpy, overly tired two-year-old to keep his hands off things.  Thank goodness for soap and sanitizer!

 I’m pretty sure I had a mini panic attack mid-flight (no doubt induced by extreme fatigue).  It’s one thing to say “we’re moving to China” and another to have your entire family on a plane with almost all your worldly possessions en route.  I told Dave it reminded me of being nine-months pregnant driving to the hospital to be induced with each boy.  I remember telling him at the time: “I feel like I’m driving to my doom!  What was I thinking?  I purposely chose to be in this predicament and it’s not exactly as if I can back out at this point!”  Of course I assume, as with having children, that a few months from now when we’re all sleeping normally, I can understand enough Chinese to tell the driver where to go, the boys are in school, I know how to work my new cell phone, I know where to shop, I’m no longer living in a hotel, I know where all those taxis are hiding, I can convert renminbi to dollars easily (or just think in renminbi), and it’s not so cold and damp, I’ll forget how incredibly overwhelming everything is right now!  Until then, we’re just happy to be safe and sound in Suzhou…if not extremely tired.