So many, many forever families have just come home or are on their way back. There's Laura at "Confessions of a Russian Adoption" whose family just completed its second Russian adoption. Ditto Mike and Melissa at "Russian Adoption Journey" and Betsy's family at "All Creechers Great And Small". Jeff and Maria--and their new son-- headed home on Monday. Lauren, Marco and their daughter will all be back home soon too. Congratulations to everyone!

I figured it's as good a time as any to offer a few tips on surviving re-entry.

1. Switch them to American food gradually. As I noted a while back in my post on the importance of whole grains to the Russian diet, orphanage food may not be visually appealing, but it is all your child has known. I let my older son eat something non-orphanage two days after our court date and experienced one of the worst poop blow-outs ever seen. Where to find Russian food here? As part of my recent post on Russian grocery stores, I set up a forums thread on where folks have found Russian food stores around the U.S. And there are a few stores listed already.

2. Stay on the orphanage schedule. One of the things I made sure I got a copy of before I left my sons' orphanages was information on what their day was like: When they woke up, when they ate, when they played. And I kept them on it, or at least as much as airplane schedules, 13 time zone changes and getting back to work would allow. Even now, home 16 months, my younger son wakes up at his orphanage time and he can't even think of eating breakfast until exactly one hour later.

3. Skip the baby talk and go straight to good English. Your kids are going to arrive here with no English and plenty of language skills delays. As I wrote in my recent post on helping kids learn the language of their new country, I immersed my kids in English. Good words. Baby talk is cute, but my goal was to give them an age-appropriate vocabulary as fast as possible. And it worked.

4. Keep them away from crowds and confusion. Every family member and friend who has been reading your adoption blog is going to want to meet your new arrival as soon as possible. But keep the visits small and short--and on your turf. Despite being home more than a year, my little guy can still have trouble with crowds, as I found out to my dismay at the American Museum of Natural History on President's Day.

5. Hug and kiss them as often as you can. But I didn't have to tell you that, did I?