Jin-yeong Arrives!

Ella and I drove to Atlanta yesterday to pick up Sheref & Charlie at the airport. Their flight arrived at 19:40. Ella and I got to Atlanta around 15:30 and spent most of that time shopping. We arrived at the airport, which was amazingly easy to navigate (I had been there many times, but only for layovers, so had never driven to the airport) around 18:30. We had a nice little sit-down dinner in the airport and then waited for Sheref & Charlie to clear customs and immigration. They finally came out into the arrivals lobby around 20:45. Charlie was amazingly chill, laid-back and happy. His foster mother told Sheref he is the most laid-back baby she has fostered, and he is her 14th foster child! He was quite curious and interested in everything, but very chill. We drove about 2 hours towards home, then decided to stay at a hotel. Charlie had very little interest in sleep after sleeping 8 hours on the flight, especially considering that it was the middle of the day as far as his body clock was concerned. He fussed a lot overnight, but it was still about 50 times better than I had expected. This morning we got up and drove home, arriving around 1pm. He was such a little superstar in his carseat. Again, I fully expected him to scream all the way home, and in fact he just fussed for about 5 minutes, and otherwise was quiet. So far, his transition to our family is going faaaaar better than I had expected. He is clearly a little reserved, and only smiles and laughs with a lot of effort, but he has gotten visibly more comfortable even just over the course of the afternoon and evening since we arrived home.

Our first family picture this afternoon, on our way for our first family walk. Rose is the one on the left, standing back a bit, looking sort of ticked off. She looks ticked off because she was ticked off. She was quite wound up when we got home, and would not let Charlie have any breathing room -- like constantly trying to get him to drink his bottle, play with X or Y toy, play with our dog, etc etc etc. She got reprimanded a few times, and then decided that she wanted to regress to being the baby...blah blah blah blah. She was not a happy camper on our walk. A little "Rose time" (one-on-one time with me) made her feel a little better. She seems to be doing fine now. She does really like Charlie, and wanted to help with his bath and help feed him. After we put him to bed around 30 minutes ago, she actually woke him up by sneaking into our room to "just look at him." Why, you ask? Well, in Rose's words, "Ummm, I just wanted to look at him because I forgetted what he looked like." Okaaaaay.

Charlie was super curious and kept craning his neck to the side in the front pack, which was uncomfortable for both of us, so we switched the carrier to the back, which worked out much better for both of us. About 5 minutes after this picture was taken, he was out, fast asleep!

In his high chair, "enjoying" some mashed bananas (yeah, not really)

Exploring his new home. The boy loves his paci.

With Ella. He smiled at her the first time he saw her at the airport, and still seems to love her!

After his bath, again with Ella.

Charlie with the dethroned former baby of the family, Rose.