So, eventually we wake up (King Kong is playing again but Rose doesn't seem to mind, though at some points I physically turn her face away from being able to see whats going on). Rose and I had sort of slept through breakfast, as it seems most of the folks on the plane did, but Chuck grabbed us some rolls that neither of us much wanted to eat. I'm going to shorten the flight time dramatically here for you folks and just fast forward through the eighteen hours or whatever until we land at Dulles in Washington D.C.
We get off the plane and go through immigration. We are interviewed by a thirtysomething Latino woman with the driest monotone voice ever. She's asking us what could be construed as very nice although somewhat invasive questions but in this flat tone of voice that I'm just not sure what to do with. But basically it was a brief interview and we're through to pick up our bags and go to customs, where we witness a guy sort of being berated by the customs agents, but we get through fine.
We recheck in to our next set of flights, and have two hours to kill, so we go to Chilli's and find that Rose's penchant for spicy extends into Mexican food, which is great news. Then we hang in the terminal for a minute before boarding to O'Hare. We have a short hop to Chicago, which Rose mostly sleeps through on my lap. In Chicago, things get a little more tough. We have a two hour layover, which is fine, we find a place that sells fruit and Rose eats a banana, and then we just hang out and play and wait for our flight. She gets a little fussy (which is completely understandable as we are well into our 28th hour of traveling, it should be night time but it's not, etc). I walk her around a bit and get a couple of looks from people, I'm not sure if it's the white lady holding a brown baby or "god, I hope that crying kid isn't on my flight"…
Finally we board like, the tiniest plane ever, and the seats are two and two, so we have two together and one across the aisle. And the flight attendant tells me that Rose has to be in her own seat for the duration of the flight with the seatbelt on. Rose emphatically does not agree, and lets the whole plane know that when I sit her down (up until now, she has been totally fine on the plane). I hear snide comments from the college kids behind me, and I could totally take them (or at least Chuck could), but I figure my getting in a fight right now won't improve the situation. And then there is a luggage problem. Like, it's not on the plane. So we wait 10 minutes (Rose is still really unhappy and crying), and then I give the bird to the flight attendant and get Rose out of her seat. She immediately quiets down and promptly falls asleep. We wait for the bags to be loaded for probably close to an hour. Then, the flight attendant comes back around and makes me put Rose back in the seat for takeoff. I want to tell her- if we crash, do you really think she'll be better off in her own seat? It's not like people walk away often from plane crashes. But I manage to put her down and buckle her in a way that she doesn't wake up, and fifteen minutes later we are in Milwaukee and on our way home.
We call our house and tell Nic we are on our way, when we pull into the driveway he and Dillon are waiting on the front porch. The dogs are in the backyard for a minute until they jump the fence to come say hello. Dillon gives us and his sister a big hug and we have a wonderful homecoming. Nic brought us a dozen long-stemmed roses of many colors, and Dillon showed us the bajillion new toys he'd scammed off of his grandparents and other family the week we were gone. Rose was completely enamored of Dillon, I don't know if she remembered him from her photo album or if it was just love at first sight, but they were laughing and playing within minutes. She let me put her down in the playroom and Dillon was showing her everything and dressing her up as a construction worker. The only setback we had was when Dharma came over to say hello and Rose pretty much jumped out of her skin. So the dogs got locked in the basement.
It got late quickly, so we bathed the kids and Dillon and Chuck stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn, and Rose and I went to bed in my bedroom. We figured we'd try her bed tomorrow after she's gotten a little more comfortable in the house.