When we landed it was 8:00pm EST, and while it was only 5:00pm where we were coming from, I think we all felt like it was about 11:00pm. It was dark out when we landed, time for bed. But still some miles/minutes to go before we could hit the pillow.
Gathered our numerous scattered belongings from the plane, loaded all the peeps up in the stroller and headed for baggage claim. By this point, Max was done. Tired and hungry. He was pissed about being in the baby sling (I had no warm milk for them). So he’s screaming. Alice is done. She was pissed about being confined to the stroller. She’s screaming. Jon I’m sure wants to be done but instead like a knight in battle is trying to fight to gran our bags while holding Charlie. Charles is being jostled about, so he’s squawking. And my mom is trying to keep Sam from climbing on the baggage claim conveyer belt (at one point he put his Lightening McQueen carry-on ON the baggage claim conveyer belt and I had to chase it to rescue it with a screaming Max). And all the while my boobs are done—boob alarm is going on off with intensity.
Retrieving the eleven bags and carseats with tired children was probably my least favorite part of the whole trip. Figuring out how to get all of the luggage and carseats to the car rental place quite frankly was a total bitch. I was divying out Swedish Fish like it was going out of style. My mom faithfully stood in line at car rental (I am sure she’s thinking “and I came on this vacation because….?!”). She got out minivan, we lugged the luggage to where we actually pick up the car, installed all four carseats, and loaded all of the bags (which barely fit). My poor mother got stuck in the backseat of the van between Sam and Alice’s seats while I sat in the front because I needed the cigarette lighter for my breast pump. I’d hit the boob alarm snooze button long enough. Dying.
Went through McDonald’s drive-thru on the way to our condo. Sam fell asleep on the way, of course. Babies screamed until I had some warm milk ready for them. Arrived at our place about 9:30pm. Sorted through bags to find kids jammies while they got a second wind exploring their new digs but quickly threw them into bed. Alice only fell out of her big girl bed once last night (using this trip as a way to transition her out of her crib).
I watched about 15 minutes of SNL last night. I don’t know when the last time I was awake late enough to watch SNL. I saw one sketch about Harry Pottery Barn, laughed, then stumbled to bed.
Thank you for all who prayed. Some of you sweetly asked and we coveted any prayers yesterday—they were effective!
If we knew the truth about how tricky life with kids could be, people probably wouldn’t procreate by choice. Adam and Eve would have just been Adam and Eve, then bye-bye human existence. Good thing we are too stupid to know the truth.
