The Move Across The Pond

I thought giving birth was the hardest thing I would ever have to do.  Nope.  I would rather have 5 babies than try to repeat Sunday's events. 
AWFUL.

Let's recap.
At Hubby's parents', before leaving the airport, everything went pretty well.  My dad didn't eat, but that is normal when he is nervous.  We had to say good-bye to Bella, but that was expected.  At the airport, my parents, Hubby's parents, & Hubby's godmother all cried when we left to board the plane.  That was expected, but still very hard.  I almost cried, but held it together.

Then the real fun started. As we were going through security, we were informed that they had closed the gate.  Were we late?  No.  Were we dawdling?  No.  Apparantly at that particular airport it is ok to leave early if they feel like it.  Anyway, so we dont have our shoes on & our stuff is still being scanned & we have to grab everything & RUN!  We almost got left!  Were it not for Hubby's godmother coming to the rescue, we wouldn't have made it.  Stressful already!

The plane from WV to DC was teeny tiny & hot & noisy.  Of course Baby Girl didn't sleep; so Hubby made her bottle while I held her (BTW: I had to start supplementing my nursing with formula).   It just so happened that the can of formula we brought was brand new.  So when he popped the tab it exploded from the change in air pressure and he got coated in baby formula!  :-)  We just looked at each other and laughed.  It was kind of a stress reliever after rushing onto the plane.  At that point we were still laughing at the bumps in the road.

Then we got to DC & boarded a much nicer plane.  At this point, I still had hope.  The plane was laid out with 2 seats near a window, an aisle, 5 seats in the midde, an aisle, & then 2 more seats by a window.  The 3 of us got the 3 middle seats in the row of 5. YAY!!  (That was sarcasm in case you missed it).  So we were wedged in the middle seats.  Baby Girl wouldn't sleep.  Instead, right before dinner was served & right after everyone got their drinks she pooped!  A green nasty poop.  So I then asked the awkward foreign pre-teen next to me to please let me out.  She was compliant, but unfortunately spilled her apple juice.  Just on the tray though, so it's no crisis.  OK, has anyone ever changed a diaper in an airplane bathroom?  Not fun.  Not even alright.  It's actually a total drag.

However, we got through it & headed back to our seat.  Baby Girl was getting sleepy at this point so we put her in her carseat & gave her a bottle in hopes that she would sleep.  It worked for about 2 hours.  She woke up sweating like crazy! We had a carseat blanket thingy on the carseat & I guess it works really well! She was burning up in there poor baby.  It will come in handy for Germany at least.  Well, that was all the sleep she got.  We played with her for awhile & let her watch some TV (desperate times call for desperate measures).
 
Then we landed & were the last people off the plane & the last people to get our luggage.  We had to go wait in this holding area with all the other army families arriving in Germany.  They told us that there would be somebody along to brief us very soon and that we needed to stay in the waiting area.  No time for food or phone calls.  So we wait & wait & wait. Wait for the briefing, wait for orders, wait and wait for the bus.  Baby Girl still hasn't slept.

Three plus hours later we got on the bus.  Guess what Baby Girl did?  She pooped.  AGAIN! yay.  I had no more clothes in her diaper bag & the rest of our stuff was under the bus.  She pooped SO MUCH that it leaked through her clothes.  So we changed her & just wrapped her up in a blanket. Then a little later, Baby Girl lost her cool in a big, big way.  She SCREAMED her little heart out.  I felt so bad.  I felt bad for her because she was so exhausted & I felt bad for the entire rest of the bus trying to sleep.
 
Hubby finally calmed her down by standing in the aisle and singing to her till she fell asleep.  So she FINALLY took a nap.  When the bus stopped for McDonalds, we (ok, Hubby, not me) dug through her clothes under the bus to find something to wear.  Because of her nap she was in a good mood at this point, thank goodness.  About an hour later I realized that I was sitting on butt paste.  Yes, the tube of butt paste was under me and I got butt pasted.  It was not only all over me, but all over the seat and even on Hubby.  Great.  Then when we're cleaning up the mess, we ran out of wipes.  Great.

FINALLY, like 8 billion hours later, we arrived in the place where we are temporarily staying.  Luckily there was someone there to drive our stuff, but unluckily me & Hubby & Baby Girl had to walk 3 blocks in the cold to our hotel.  I know, it's not that far, but all 3 of us were so tired we could barely drag our feet.  And, THEN, when we got to the hotel we were talking to Hubby's sponsor and found out that Hubby has to go to the field for 3 months before he deploys.  Excellent.  I lost my marbles.  I just wanted to go back home so bad.
 
One last thing.  This actually put things in perspective for me.  When we called home from the hotel to let family know we made it safe I found out that a very close relation of mine has melanoma.  Suddenly, living in Germany didn't seem too bad after all. 
  
Now, we have orgainzed our hotel home & we're ok for awhile.  Hopefully, we will get an apartment before Thanksgiving & also meet some people soon!