Home At Last

We left Sofia on Saturday morning at 6:00am BG time and arrived home in Indianpolis at 9:35pm ET. We were awake for over 24 hours, but Nikolas did amazing. He was a little squirmy on the flight from Sofia to Frankfurt, but he did well. We got some breakfast and walked around the airport in Frankfurt. We met a lady while waiting at our gate who was bringing home her new son from Ukraine. He's 12 and quite a charming young man. We all sat fairly close together on the plane. Because the flight was full and our travel agent (Sheldon at Golden Rule Travel) had just booked us any seats to get us on the plane, we got moved to seats in Economy Plus so we could all be together. The extra leg room was great! Nikolas had a couple of small meltdowns, but he did so well. We had the most amazing flight attendants who made sure Nikolas and the little guy from Ukraine had everything that they needed. Our flight was delayed by about 45 minutes, so we ended up getting in to Washington DC a little late. We made it through customs and rechecked our bags. Becky, Wayne and Audra (my aunt, uncle and cousin) had driven over to the airport for a quick visit, so it was great to see them for a few minutes. We rushed back to our gate only to find that our flight had been delayed. We didn't have a flight crew so they had to find one for us. We were scheduled to leave at 4:53pm and ented up leaving around 7:40. We were back in Indianapolis around 9:35pm. It was a small commuter plane with two seats on one side and one on the other. I sat with Nikolas and Jason sat in the single seat across the aisle. As soon as we got seated and I buckled Nikolas' seatbelt, he handed me his shoes and snuggled up next to me. He was asleep before the plane left the ground. He usually takes off his shoes when he wants to go to sleep. So cute! My parents were at the airport waiting to bring us home. Nikolas went right to sleep and we were in bed soon after.

Our first day at home went very well. Jason and I woke up and had breakfast before Nikolas woke up. He got up around 10:00am and had breakfast and fell back asleep on the floor at 11:45pm. He slept for a few hours. We played for the rest of the afternoon. He did have a couple of small meltdowns after being told that he couldn't do something, but we are using the "time-in" method and it seems to be working great. Mark, Cindy, Hannah and Grace stopped by for a quick visit and dropped off dinner. We are so blessed to have great friends to help us out and support us during this time of transition. After dinner we played some more until bath time. Bath time tonight was a huge success. Nikolas loved playing with his bath toys and actually sat down in the water and laughed. He stayed in there playing for quite a while. He even laughed when we poured water on his head to wash his hair. Less than a week ago he screamed for the entire five minutes that he was in the tub. Tonight he didn't want to get out. He has come so far in such a short period of time. We got ready for bed and had some vanilla pudding that was made with Pediasure instead of milk, a recipe sent to me by Viviane, a fellow adoptive mom. He went right to sleep around 8:30pm and is still asleep this morning.