Overdue

I've sat down and written about 5 different versions of this entry in the past month or so. So much has happened and most of the time I'm just so incredibly frazzled, everything I write just seems like verbal diarrhea. But I'm realizing that I'm going to continue to be frazzled for a very long time and if I don't write it down now, it'll never happen. So how about a quick list before everybody wakes up from their afternoon nap?

1. Just as we've been told by friends who have recently pcs-ed back from Germany, life in America now, ironically enough, has become very foreign. Europeans lead a much more simple, slow-paced life, at least in our neck of the woods, and we've grown accustomed to that. The first word that comes to mind when I think about being back is "excess." More is more in this country. Cars, houses, meals, people--everything got bigger and fancier, whether or not it's necessary, since we left. We went in to get cellphones and ended up looking at machines that seemed to do everything but make a phone call. Seriously, the phone that I was comfortable operating was the kind they marketed to seniors. Four years away just might as well have been 20 in this speed-of-light environment. There are so many people, things, and cars that my sensor just gets so overloaded every time we go out I want to come home and lock myself in a bathroom for a while. Don't even let me get started on going to Walmart. It feels like a punishment having to go buy a gallon of milk there, because it takes me 15 minutes just to scan the endless refrigerated section for it.

2. I've said this before, Statesboro reminds me a lot of Auburn when I went to school there a decade ago. Same size, same restaurants, same southern drawl. I want to call up my boys every time we drive pass Mellow Mushroom. It feels a little like I'd stepped back in time--I'm still the sloppily-dressed one amongst all the done-up pretty sorority girls in a fast food line. People are usually incredibly friendly, as they are in the south, and especially with us because of the two beautiful kids everyone dotes on. However, public breastfeeding can turn a fairly hospitable crowd against you in a big hurry, as we found out the night we moved into our new house. Imagine the scene: it's 10 p.m. after a very long exhausting day. We were buying pillows, blankets, towels, everything that we needed for the night in our empty (and very dirty) new rental house. We had a cart full of stuff, Chase was asleep in a double stroller that Wil was also pushing, and I had Wren strapped to my chest asleep in the Ergo. She started to stir and began to let us know that no amount of jiggling or rocking could possibly prolong the unavoidable meltdown from that long painful day. I decided to breastfeed the baby in hope to calm her down while Wil stayed in line to pay. Mind you, I was wearing one of those giant wrap, open-front maternity sweater things (ignore the fact that I'm still wearing maternity clothes here for a minute) that, thankfully, could go around me twice and also made the perfect blanket/nursing cover for Wren. I was sitting on a bench far enough from the line that I didn't hear the conversation, but my dear husband, who was now paying for our stuff, relayed the following to me:

A Walmart cashier who was about to start her shift as soon as Wil was done paying for our stuff: "That woman just popped out her titties!"
A man who was standing in line behind Wil: "Yeah, somebody go tell her that we don't need to see THAT around here."
My Husband, a.k.a. the Defender of Nursing Mothers Everywhere: "THAT would be my wife, who's trying her best to comfort our baby, who's beyond exhausted and needed to nurse. It's perfectly natural AND legal."
The offending parties, mumbling: "Umm...sorry..um..."

It would be one thing if I were taking out my boobs and waving them around like I were trying to win a free jello shot on a Red Neck Riviera spring break. Seriously, the only thing that you could see was the top of my kid's head. That was not the only time people gave me a dirty look for feeding my kid, even though it was the only time somebody had the gall to say something about it. The surprising thing is public feeding seems to offend people of my parents' generation the most. Older and younger crowd don't seem to care. Why is that?

3. Moving sucks in general, but this move really really blows. The movers came to get our stuff when Wren was exactly 3 weeks old. We slept on the floor that night because there was some "miscommunication" about when the loaner furniture was supposed to be dropped off. We kept Wren's bassinet for her to sleep on, so I had to get up and down day and night to feed and comfort the child. This would not have been that big of a problem if I didn't have stitches in the most delicate lady area (WHOA! Boobies AND lady part in the same post!) and my husband didn't have 2 back surgeries under his belt. That night, coupled with having to camp in our house for the next 3 weeks before moving into a hotel for 10 more days before finally flying out, really really tested the strength of our marriage. Then came the day to fly. It took 2 trips in a big cargo van just to get all of us and our stuff to the airport. Got in and found out that the flight was already delayed for 3 hours because of bad weather. Ok, there was nothing we could do about that. Then came the weighing of the dogs. You might have already heard this part through Facebook, but Fatty Paddy had to lose at least 3 lbs because AMC flights could only take pets if they and their kennels weighed less than 150 lbs. Paddy weighed 103 and his kennel was 50 about 10 days before the flight. We had to cut his food intake down by half and never felt more guilty about it, especially after he wolfed down a cup of food and looked up at us with those sad big brown eyes. So, who wants to guess how much he weighed? 150 lbs on the dot. The kennel was so big, Wil had to escort Paddy (shaking in his boots in the kennel) back to the cargo scale outside of the terminal. I was about to pass out from holding my breath when Wil walked back into the building with his thumbs up. Then the flight kept getting delayed. We finally boarded the plane nearly 10 hours after we arrived at the airport. More craptastic weather made loading luggage and cargo hazardous, and we ended up just sitting and waiting on the airplane for another 2 hours. Try strapping a two-year-old to a seat and telling her to sit quietly if you do not value your sanity. Once we were airborne, things were fairly uneventful considering we had 2 kids, who were so beyond exhausted and out of sort, with us. Chase cried a few times, Wren was permanently strapped down in the Ergo and walked all over the airplane, and I was determined to smother her, or anyone else that cried for that matter, with breast milk until she passed out. It felt like we had reached the holy land when we got to BWI. Then I remembered that we still had to retrieve everything AND the dogs to go through custom. The memory of flying them to Germany via BWI was permanently branded in my brain, and I knew this was going to be much worse simply because we all were fried. 2 Giant kennels plus dogs, 4 pieces of luggage weighing 55-70 lbs each, 4 carry-on's, 2 carseats, and no flat bed cart anywhere. I can assure you it was pure hell on earth. Wil tried unsuccessfully to use regular luggage carts to transport everything against my advice, the kennels tipped over and fell (with the dogs inside because we weren't allowed to bring them out), we bickered and the kids screamed. When all else failed, we pushed the kennels. One by one, foot by foot. Then, somebody called somebody who called somebody else who knew someone with a flat bed and brought it to us. You'd better believe there were tears in my eyes. At one point there were at least 2 custom officers, 2 BWI personnel, 3-4 USO volunteers helping us pushed the carts and stroller and giving us the much appreciated snack and water. I'll forever be grateful for their kindness and helping hands. So 2.5 hours after we landed, we finally located and sent the boys off with a driver, who would take them to North Carolina to board until we found a house in Statesboro. At this point we all had been up well over 24 hours already and were quickly coming undone (missing a hotel shuttle twice in a row???). Finally we found ourselves on a shuttle to our hotel, and it was just about when the shuttle driver finished loading up all of our crap when my husband, with panic in his voice, asked me "Honey, have you seen my black folder?" At some point early in this mad move, I resided myself to the fact that things weren't going to get done my way, and we were surely going to get a divorce if I kept micromanaging the process. Wil kept everything concerning this move and his clearing process in this black folder. I didn't like that and asked for at least one copy of everything, all of which I didn't get, to keep in a separate folder I carried. So back to the shuttle. We held up the shuttle while Wil quickly searched through the luggage and ran back inside the airport to look in places he thought he might have left it. Nothing. After what seemed like an eternity, he told me that he needed to stay behind to look for the thing and I should take the girls ahead to the hotel. WITH ALL OF OUR STUFF. BY MYSELF. WHEN I HAD ALREADY BEEN AWAKE FOR ABOUT 30 HOURS. I pretty much lost it on the freaking short bus. The kind people on the shuttle, all of whom miraculously had some kind of military affiliation, took pity on me and helped me get all the luggage and car seats off the shuttle. The problem came when I had to carry all of that mess up to the third floor room all by myself without a luggage carrier. Poor Chase, who could barely keep her eyes open at this point, was tugging at my sweater and whimpering because I couldn't pick her up since I was also wearing Wren in the Ergo while dragging 2 pieces of luggage at a time up the elevator and to our room. It took me over an hour, with the kids in tow, to get them all in the room, and guess who showed up to the hotel right after I finally put both girls down for the night? I was so beyond mad I couldn't even look at him and have a sudden urge to throw a shoe at him right now as I type and relive that damn night. And we had to get up just 4 hours later to get back on the shuttle to catch the flight to Jacksonville. That was the worst night of my life.

So it's taken hours long after their afternoon nap to wrap up that #3, so I'll carry this over to the next installment of "The Move from Hell." Hope you'll never have this kind of night.