Our journey home

Our journey home started at 12am Friday morning. We left the hotel and drove through the dark and still busy streets of Delhi. We got to the airport just before 1am and checked in. On the way to India I had to sit by myself and I wasn't about to do it again. Jessica, Karuna and I sat together and Maurice was across the aisle. Both kids fell sound asleep even before the plane took off. We landed in Abu Dhabi at 7:30am and had only 2 hours to get off the plane and get to the next. By the time we got to the next gate it was almost time to board the next. Jess and I sat together and Maurice and Karuna we across the isle. The flight from Abu Dhabi to Chicago is exhausting. Since Karuna and Jessica slept during the first flight they were doing pretty good. I don't sleep well on planes so I was totally exhausted. 14 hours in a plane is just not my idea of fun. Karuna was really antsy but who could blame him. Even the little TV on the plane wasn't enough entertainment for him. He finally fell asleep when we had about 4 hours left of the flight.
We landed in Chicago at about 3:45 in the afternoon and made our way to the very long line in the immigration section. It took us about 30 minutes to finally reach the desk. We gave all of Karuna's paperwork to the very nice lady behind the desk and in just a few minutes she was done and we moved on to get our luggage. After that we took his paperwork to yet another person who then proceeded to give their stamp of approval :-) They told us to go to yet another area where we had to have our luggage screened again and we were then told we were free to go. Yipeeeee
A couple of our friends who also adopted children from GKF had asked if it was okay if they came to the airport to meet us and when we went through the last door there was Vidya(mom) with her daughter Neelu and Ashu and Anjali with their daughter Sindhu waiting for us. Karuna was so happy to see Neelu and Sindhu and they were just as thrilled. We got something to drink and visited with them for about an hour. We then called our driver that would take us home which took us about 1 1/2 hours. Jess, Karuna and Maurice all fell sounds asleep AGAIN but I just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.
We arrived at home by 8pm and I definately was ready for bed. Jess got her pj's on, we got Karuna ready for bed and told him "Karuna go sleep", he said "Karuna no sleep!" I thought oh boy we are going to have a long night! We decided to get ready for bed and maybe he would realize it was time to sleep. I was out the minute my head hit the pillow. We gave Karuna a small flashlight, showed him where the bathroom was and Maurice put him in bed. At about 2 am he came into our room and said he was hungry!! Thank goodness Vidya had fixed him some idilli and rice with yogurt. Maurice warmed it up and he gobbled most of it up. We thought with a full belly he might go back to sleep, WRONG!! I couldn't hardly keep my eyes open and neither could Maurice. To make a long story short, he didn't fall asleep again until about 4 in the afternoon. Last night he slept pretty good but was up again at about 5. If we can just get him to sleep a couple hours longer we will finally have his little clock set to Wisconsin time.
Karuna is doing great. The only time he actually got scared was when our cat came to greet us when we got home. It took him awhile to trust her and then Saturday my parents came to bring back our dog Max. He wasn't to sure about him at first either but now all is good.
Maurice goes back to work tomorrow and Jess to school, so it will be just Karuna and I alone. Mommy and Karuna bonding time begins :-)