Departure Day

After handling the logistics, and saying our final farewell through well worn cloth masks, the time for our departure finally came. We were set for a direct flight, which we wanted, to limit the total number of people we came across in the airport and on the plan for pandemic reasons. But that direct flight did mean the proposition of a daunting flight ahead of us. 

We woke up the morning (night) of our flight at 1am and got picked up by drivers from the school. We bundled up H in his jammies still and got in the car with our five suitcases containing all of our possessions. When we got to the airport, we checked everything in and got ourselves ready to roll. I was super nervous about a lot of things but I think I was most nervous about getting warm in the airport lacking A/C and showing temperature, or gettin a cough at the wrong time and being denied access to the plane for fear of having COVID. We were all in. There was no where to go back to. If something went wrong, we didn't have a home anymore to return to. But luckily, these were just anxiety fueled thoughts going through our heads. We got through check in and security just fine and our flight took off on time at 5:30am. 

Another concern I had, but knew I had no control over, was how H would do on the flight. He is at a stage (just shy of 2) now where he is extremely active. He runs, jumps, swims, climbs, and does almost everything he wants to physically now. To restrain him from any of this is an almost sure fire guarantee of toddler tantrum fit. We were asking him to sit in his seat, and not touch anything, and not put anything in his mouth for 15 hours. Flying with a toddler is insanity. Doing it while juggling the stress of moving is even worse. Doing it while still reeling from being laid off is even crazier. Add in the fact that Shannon is 6 months pregnant and we're out of our minds. Add in a pandemic and the real possibility that this travel day was going to expose us to a large gathering of people and all of their cumulative germs and you have a recipe for a nearly brain melting level of worry. But we got through it.

H was great on the plane. In a near miracle, he was content with the toys, snacks, stuffed animals, and stuff that we brought for him. With the exception of a few diaper changing meltdowns and a half dozen trips to the back of the plane to get out of our seats, he was a champion. It was enough to worry about that 50-60% of the passengers removed their masks (to no consequence) on the flight despite the warnings from the flight attendants. 

Finally, we arrived in D.C. This was the first time we had been to the U.S. in over a year. As soon as we stepped off the plane, all of our stresses about selling stuff, packing, losing our jobs, false temperature readings, toddler behavior on the plane, it all went away. Perhaps we should have waited a little longer to breathe our sigh of relief. In our judicious attempt to minimize our risk on the plane by not taking our masks off for anything, we forgot that we brought two oranges and two apples for snacks on the plane. This obviously meant that we were agricultural terrorists so we were taken into custody by customs upon arrival. I mean custody. We were taken into a room where we could not leave, with a deliriously exhausted son whose jet lag/body clock/lack of nap/effects from waking up at 1am were all wearing on us. We had to wait for the customs police to get our bags from the carousel which took over an hour and then go through all of our stuff. I realize this was our screw up, but come on guys?! Can't we just throw it out and move on with our days? No we could not. They did their jobs admirably and we dealt with the consequences of our own mistake. Moral of the story, don't bring a plane snack.

After AppleGate, we took a shuttle to the car rental place, waited another 45 minutes for our mini-van, and loaded up our five suitcases and made our way to the hotel. We stayed the night in D.C. to regroup, which was fine, and then left the next morning for the drive up to New Jersey. We stayed there in a hotel to keep our distance from people and get settled in. Aside from fighting jet lag and H waking up at 2am most days, we've made it through and settled in nicely. 

After a reasonable amount of time had passed, we started to see some friends and family while masked, outside, and it has been fantastic. I think I was mentally preparing to not see them all for the whole year when we decided not to come to the US for the summer and that kind of broke my heart a bit. I finally reconciled with it, but when we were able to see them all again, it really hit me hard. H only spent 2 weeks of his life around his family. His aunt, grandmother, and great grandmother have now seen him from a distance chasing squirrels and climbing park benches and I am incredibly grateful for it. We left the hotel yesterday and just settled into a beach house where we will spend another week to ten days before driving down south to Florida.

Things have been moving fast. Since the time we found out we were moving until right now, it has been a whirlwind. We've moved to new continents. We've had job interviews and offers from multiple places. We've finally seen our families, and now we can kick back for at least a week before seeing whatever comes next, and we're happy to take our feet off the gas, even if for just a moment.