Hello, America

We're home!

The journey was far easier than we had feared, thanks to a miraculously good boy who had only one bad moment on the loooong flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles, when Baba tried to help fussy Quinn by popping his fingers back into his mouth. SKREEEEEEECH!!!! He screamed for about a minute and quieted down.

Quinn became an American in the eyes of the law when we touched down in LA. He seemed to understand the significance of the moment as he looked out over the tarmac:


For most of the flights, he entertained himself by playing with his toys. On the flight from Guangzhou, we were lucky to have an empty seat next to us:

He did very well, but after a while he got a bit bored:


On the long flight, he had his own little cubby under my seat - although he spent most of the flight sleeping on my seat. About two hours before we landed I gave up and surrendered the seat to him; I sat on the footrest and read a book.

Here he is in his cubby. This is the first picture he ever posed for and smiled:

Homeward bound

Tomorrow morning we head home.

I'll be sad to leave China, the place of Quinn's birth and heritage, but I'm excited to get him into his new life and develop some sort of routine.

This trip has been amazing, and I've loved everything about it.

I'm so glad we were able to see China and learn a bit about a country I had underestimated and misunderstood.

I'm so grateful that we were able to see Quinn's finding place and piece together some of his history and the events of day he was found - the day he began his journey to us.

And most of all, of course, I'm awed that this trip gave us our amazing son, who is currently sitting on the middle of a kingsized bed, happily stacking his cups and babbling his adorable little baby babble.

I'll write again once we're home and settled. Thanks to all of you for sharing the most important journey of our lives - it was fun to have you be a part of it!

The White Swan play room

I had heard a lot about the playroom at the White Swan, so while Tom called his mom this morning Quinn and I headed down to check it out. It's big and carpeted and full of baby toys. It was built by Mattel, in a stroke of marketing genius. Parents try out Mattel toys here, and go home and buy them.

From Quinn's perspective, the place is pretty perfect:

Quinn's first American meal

After more than two weeks in China, some American food sounded pretty darn good. It's a gorgeous day, so we went to Lucy's and ate outside.

Iced tea - hooray!

And grilled cheese sandwiches - with the crusts cut off!

Boys' day out

Yesterday I had a meeting, so Tom and Quinn headed out on the town. They made quite the scene and made friends everywhere they went. A gallery owner gave Quinn a rattle to hook onto the Baby Bjorn (he LOVES it). Later one of our friends went to another shop and said they had adopted their daughter from Beijing, and he said he had met a man that morning who had a Beijing Boy. The man had "cool hair," the guy said. Of course, Melanie knew just who he was talking about.

A romantic dinner for three

Last night was beautiful, so we ate at a lovely outdoor restaurant on a heavily planted pedestrian street. We sat at a big, wide couch, which was perfect for Quinn. He sat and played with his trucks and rattles the whole time we were there.

We were sitting on this front porch:


The place used to be a coffee and tea house, so their tea presentation was quite lovely:

That face...

We just can't get enough: