If You Give The Smiths a Ze: May 2010

First off, I truly apologize to all those who have been diligently following our blog only to find us falling off the face of the earth upon arrival to Terra fir ma! Yes we have arrived back in good old Elyria, OH. We arrived @23:00 E.S.T. after being in the air/on the road for 24+ hours. Nathan did well w/the whole journey. We were quite leery about the flight from Shanghai to Newark because of his disliking of seat belts. Sure enough, we buckle him in and he is going full bore! Mama had some food and toys for just such an occasion. So there we are, child crying his eyes out, we're showing him our seat belts, trying everything in our (limited) playbook to calm him down. Nada. Then the good Lord steps in, in the form of an Asian stewardess, and she calmly tells Nate what's going on, etc. Silence. He looks down @his lap belt and proceeds to wait for take-off. I will be honest and say that it is @this point that I look over to Denise and state that I wasn't sure this was the right thing to do. Of course I know, in my heart, that it is, but it was @that moment that some sincere doubt found it's way into my being.
I am happy to report that I have since been given proof positive that this IS the right thing to do and God will help us along. We had a safe flight in, were greeted by some fantastic friends, complete w/their children in PJs. Our house was still standing and never looked more inviting!
I won't bore you all w/a bunch of details because I know you're all waiting for more pictures! I thank the high speed gods for providing me w/DSL that allows me to upload photos much faster than while abroad. Suffice to say that Nathan is starting to get into a routine. He has met just about all of our family members and some friends, as I had mentioned. He went to the doctor's a few days after we got home and has a clean bill of health, as much as they can w/no family history to go by. He did receive two shots in the leg and, for the next couple of days, proceeded to look like Tiny Tim hobbling around our house! He's picking up some English here and there, but w/his repaired cleft palate, speech therapy is going to be a must.
The day after his vaccinations he spiked a 101 degree fever and Denise and I were in a panic. He was crying and I'm sure his leg was quite painful. We tried getting him to take a children's Tylenol chewable. He proceeded to choke on that! Fortunately he spit it out and we were able to mix some liquid Tylenol in w/his milk and all returned to (ab)normal in a relatively short time.