Momentary freedom.

I don’t know how long I have to write, because I’m in Mum and Dad’s "room" (the lounge room) and Dad may want to go to bed soon. But I have to write! I have SO MUCH to say, and because I’m on a laptop, I know I have nowhere near enough time to say the things.

Okay, last time I wrote properly was… Monday night. I know I skipped a day, but it is now Friday night. That’s just not on!

Tuesday morning was buckets of stress and worry. I had a million things to do, and because I couldn’t articulate them fully and write them all on the whiteboard, Jake didn’t know what  to do and so he did not much. Which is a bit of a lie, he got the stroller out of the car, put the suitcases in the car, did the dishes… and most importantly he watched Ash while I did stuff. I was still running around like a chicken with its head cut off though. I managed to get almost everything done (I didn’t get to fully back up the computer, it was taking too long!), and we left 20 minutes later than I wanted to leave. But that was okay, because by some crazy miracle we didn’t hit any traffic on the way to JFK airport, and so we got there exactly 2 hours after I had wanted to leave, which is the time we would have arrived if we had hit traffic.

We had some subway for dinner, then went through the security checkpoint, leaving Lisa behind (she hated leaving Ashley. Understandable). We went to the smoothie place for our traditional pre-flight beverage, and then waited for the plane.

Ash did amazing on that flight. It was just under 6 hours, and she slept most of it. We took off, then we were moved to an empty row with the bassinets, so even though we didn’t use

(AAND I got called away because Ash started crying only half an hour after bed time, and wouldn’t let me be away from her for the rest of the night)

So, the ‘short’ flight. We moved to the bassinet rows, it was past Ash’s bedtime but she wasn’t sleepy so I got the tv out and we watched a random kids show that ended up being a weird cartoon Bananas in Pyjamas. Ashley laughed and laughed through the whole show (it was kinda funny, even though there was no sound. there was a character that I named "Dr Monkey") and once it was over she decided it was time for some milk and some sleep, and she stayed sleeping for the rest of the flight. I actually had to wake her up for landing, because they didn’t want her laying down on my lap for that. She didn’t fuss when I woke her up (!!), and she didn’t seem to get bothered by the landing. Or the take off, actually. I don’t know how she did it, but it just didn’t bother her ears. She is all kinds of awesome.

LAX was pretty simple. We were at gate 102 (or 104, something like that) and we had to walk to 123A. I figured that wouldn’t be too far, so didn’t bother to put Ash in the babyhawk. BIG MISTAKE. It was too far and we had to stop on the way to swap Ash for the diaper bag so Jake could carry her. Turned out we were right around the corner from the gate, but I was just exhausted from carrying her big body.

The second flight was okay. 16 hours is too long when you can’t sleep or watch movies for the entire time. I slept for 20 minutes here and there. Jake tried to watch a movie but didn’t get to finish it (he said it was crap anyway). The last 12 hours dragged ridiculously, I looked at the clock every 20 minutes thinking it had been a few hours at least. Ashley slept in little bursts, but there were lots of young kids in the few rows around us so one would start crying and set the rest off. We had left LA at 3am New York time, so of course they were all crashing.

When we finally, finally landed, it was the greatest thing ever. Ashley had bonded with the 14 month old boy we were sitting next to, so while we were landed but taxiing to the gate, they w ere holding hands and gently slapping each other. It was adorable. That boy cried the most out of all the kids on the plane, so I was really glad to be away from him.

We timed ourselves perfectly. We got our bags out of the overhead thing, and I put on the babyhawk. Then we waited for a lull in the crowd leaving  the plane, rather than trying to cram into the line. So we got to customs and the line was shortish, got through that fairly quickly, and went to the baggage carousel and TADA our bags were right there! It was all working perfectly, except they sent us through to the line to get our bags sniffed by a dog because I declared that I had baby  food (rice cakes and cereal) because they say if unsure, say yes. So I said yes. There were lots of people getting their bags sniffed, we were the only non-asians though. Also the only ones with a baby. So grateful I strapped Ash to me, I would have died if I had to hold her that whole time. Thankfully the dog-sniff time was quick, and then we were out and there was a NATEY and he brought us home and we had completed our travels!!

Tomorrow, or at least "next time", I will write about Ellen meeting Ashley, Jenn & Elouise meeting Ashley, and a party with all of us. And also how Ashley is dealing with all the changes, and how she is towards all the people here…