Well since we are almost to Washington DC I can now write about our ride home. It’s been a blast traveling with Noah as he gets everyone’s attention. At the airport while we were waiting on our delayed flight I would walk around with him and all the other kids would want to come up to him. They would want to touch his hands and some even gave him kisses on the hands. Mom thought this was giving him germs but I found it funny. Noah loved it and I think we have a very sociable little guy...

We also met a few other families that are taking their adopted children home.  It’s amazing the bond that already exists between families like this.  This is something I didn’t expect but I now see while many adopted parents and agencies promote adopted parents small groups in the communities.

Noah has been fairly well behaved.  He’s almost down in a routine that goes something like this:  wide awake and playing around   sleepy and fussy (but fighting sleep)  sleeping  wake up a few times and cry  back to sleep and then finally wake up to play more.  He is teething (even though we don’t see any yet, he loves sucking and chewing on our fingers) so that along with his congestion has made for some periods of unhappiness for our little guy.  We are now the family on the plane with the screaming baby that is annoying everyone else.  Sorry everyone!

One other thing we noticed is that the Ethiopians love to give Noah attention.  There way of getting attention of babies is by snapping their fingers and making ‘clicking’ sounds with their mouth.  Noah responds really well to this so this must be something they did in the orphanage.  There is this elderly Ethiopian lady sitting across the isle from me that does not speak any English but loves giving Noah attention and he loves it also!  It must remind him of the nannies back at the orphanage.

A few thing we’ve learned that we want to advise future families on:

1) If you adopt a baby get a baby basinet from Ethiopian Airlines – we tried to do this and thought we had one reserved but when we got the airport we had not (which is NOT what the Ethiopian Airlines people told us at the Hilton.)  Anyways, the basinet means you will sit in one of the front rows by the bulkhead and once the plane is in the air they will attach a basket to the wall of the bulkhead.  This will give you somewhere to put your baby as they sleep and sit that is out of your lap.  This is FREE and can be included in the ticket price for your child (which is 10% of one adult’s ticket price – for us it was $186 USD.)  When you purchase your ticket for your child be adamant about reserving the bassinet and make sure you get some type of reservation confirmation of the basinet.  This is the step we missed and would do differently next time.

2) Make sure once you check in your luggage at the Addis airport that you fill out an Exit Card before you get in the Immigration line.  This is something we almost didn’t see and would have added 20 minutes to our trip through the airport.  The cards are at tables off to the left and the immigration booths are to the right after checking your luggage in.

3) If you don’t get #1 above ask the flight attendants for a row of seats with an extra seat for your baby.  The gate agent at the airport was not very helpful but we found the Ethiopian Airline flight attendants to be very willing to help.  They also were always willing to get us milk for Noah’s bottle throughout the flights.

4) Once you arrive in the US go to the US Citizen side of the immigration lines.  Even though your child is not a US Citizen you are and they will tell you the next steps on what to do with your adoption paperwork (in the sealed brown envelope.)

5) You do NOT need to fill out the green or white immigration form on the plane that they hand out for non-US citizens.  Your child will have an immigration visa which excludes them from filling out this form.