Leaving Home for Home Leave

A bit over a week and a half ago the girls and I said goodbye to B (on his birthday none-the-less) and began the long journey back to the U.S. for our Home Leave.  Our first trip stateside (save the couple of hours we spent in Miami before leaving on our cruise last August) since we arrived in country last March.  I was excited.  Had been for awhile by looks of this.  But this was the first time that I would be travelling with both girls by myself and that made me a bit nervous.  Of course the trip I chose to practice being super Mom was the one that included 14 hours of flying time, a 3 hour layover and customs lines a mile long.  It couldn't be helped though.  Either I went by myself and got to enjoy six weeks out of the smoggy winter or I had to wait until B was coming to the states so I could come with him and only get two weeks north of the equator.  I chose to fly solo with the girls.

It wasn't so bad.  But it wasn't so good.  

It started with them delaying my flight out of Santiago.  This flight gets delayed and cancelled all the time so I don't know why I was surprised.  

I should have known better.

Fortunately we had arrived at the airport 3 hours early thinking we could grab one last family dinner before heading out.  Wrong.  It took about 30 minutes, a lot of schedule checks and a change in airlines (thank you B for travelling as much as you do!  American would never have put us on a Delta flight without that) for us to get booked on a flight that was leaving that night.  Oh, and one that did not require 2+ connections.  But we did have to hurry.  And I mean - run through the airport - hurry.  We made the flight thanks to a very understanding Immigration officer who could have held us up long enough to miss the plane.  You see, when you travel from country to country, you must go through Immigration.  Simple enough usually.  Show them your passport and sometimes the entry Visa and you are all set.  A bit more complicated when you leave the country without your spouse, but with your children.  Especially in Chile.

This is the ORIGINAL paperwork needed.
Add a triplicate copy of each and it's an extra bag!

There is a TON of paperwork involved.  You must have the ORIGINAL birth certificate of any child, your ORIGINAL marriage certificate and a notarized letter stating that the parent not travelling authorizes the parent travelling to actually leave the country.  Then all of these must be verified and stamped by the Chilean consulate and then copied in triplicate.  Add to this that you must present all ID cards, passports and VISA's and you can see why it could take awhile for the Immigration Officer to get you through.  We were lucky as all of our paperwork was neatly in order and B was standing right next to me while he was going through it telling him in person that he ok'd the travel.  The paperwork took us weeks to put together and we were through in minutes.  Thank goodness for B being savvy about these things!

Through Immigration, off to security.  Luck was on my side here as security lines move much quicker in Chile.  No need to take off your shoes.  No need to take Stinkerbell out of her stroller and put said stroller on the belt.  No worries about water bottles being confiscated or computers needing to come out of laptop bags.  Just put your luggage up, walk through scanner, pick up luggage.  Easy Peasy.

So we made it the second security checkpoint (your bags are searched once again on the jetway before boarding) and sat in our back of the plane seats with just minutes to spare.  But what a relief that we had made it.  And then it hit me.  It was 7:30 and we had not eaten.  It was already the girls bedtime and they wouldn't be serving dinner for at least another hour.  Thankfully I talked to one of the flight attendants who agreed to let me have the cold parts of the meal (the entree was still cold and had at least half an hour to go).  The girls ate bread, salad and cookies for dinner.  Not the best by any means but they were about to crash so I needed sustenance.  I had them changed into their jammies and asleep on my lap (both had their feet in my lap while trying to lay across their seats as comfortably as possible) by about 8:30.  Which left me about 9 1/2 hours of peace and quiet.

I should have known better.  

Scratching...before I even realized what
she was up to.

About half an hour later Stinkerbell woke up scratching and crying.  At first it was just her scalp that itched and I thought it was dry skin.  Lotion applied, she still wouldn't stop whining.  Finally, I noticed she had started scratching her belly too.  One quick look confirmed my worst fears - Hives.  Now I am frantically looking for the Benedryl I always travel with.  Sometimes to knock them out (don't judge until you spend 11 hours on a flight, at night, with a kid that won't sleep but isn't happy either) sometimes for cases like this.  I gave her the pills and began to wait the 30-45 minutes it would be before they gave her some relief.  Finally, about an hour and a half later I had her asleep again. Time to relax.  I opened my Kindle and read for a bit.  I watched the movie for a bit.  And when the lights were finally turned off about midnight and the cabin got quiet, I thought I would catch some zzz's.

Again - I should have known better.

MadHatter was restless and waking up.  I tried to shift her to a more comfortable position.  I picked her up.  I was desperate to keep her sleeping but it was not to be.  She was awake at 1 am then down again 20 minutes later.  Up at 2, down at 2:20.  And that was it.  She was awake for the duration at 3 am and that meant I logged exactly 35 minutes of sleep for the entire night.  Ugh.

Neither bright eyed nor bushy tailed, we deplaned at about 6 am so we could hit Immigration and Customs.  As we were the second to last people off of the plane I didn't even hurry trying to get to Immigration.  We were going to wait in line no matter what and we had time to kill.  No sense in hurrying one lack of sleep wired little girl and one still not awake but not asleep toddler.  And wait we did.  But we cleared with no problems so I thought this would be a piece of cake.  No one was crying. No one was sick and there were no hang ups with re-entering the country after so long away.  I grabbed a porter and directed her to our baggage claim carousel.  I told her that we had 3 gray bags (in addition to the 2 girls carry ons, my camera case, my laptop bag and a pillow).  She retrieved them fairly quickly and we were on our way.

Black Duffel Bag.
I even had a picture on my phone of the culprit.

Then MadHatter tells me that I have forgotten a bag.  A black duffel.  I told her "no, we have all of our bags.  I packed them myself.  I know how many there are".  She tells me we forgot "Papa's big black one".  I tell her that Papa will be bringing his black one when he meets us in Colorado next month, but that we can't pick it up here.  She insists that I am leaving it behind.  The one that Papa packed and he brought to the airport.  I insist that we get moving if I am going to get them fed and clothed before we need to catch our next flight.  

She gives up with a sigh.

I should have known better...

Nothing of note on our flight to Milwaukee.  We land and pick up our luggage.  As I am standing there, wondering whether Stinkerbell's car seat will come out of oversize luggage or just be sent on the carousel with all the other luggage, it dawns on me.  The big black duffel bag.  The one Papa packed.

Oh, MadHatter, I should know better than to doubt you. (Seriously, she is ALWAYS right)

It was Stinkerbell's car seat!  We never claimed it in Atlanta. It never cleared Customs.  I didn't think about it because I really hadn't packed it.  It got put in the bag at the airport in Santiago and B carried it to the counter and got it on the plane.  I had totally forgotten about it.

Luckily, they had seen that I had claimed my other bags and had made my next flight.  They put it on the next flight out and it would be joining us in Milwaukee in about 2 hours.  Sigh of relief.  The only problem was that we had to come back and pick it up since it was clearly my fault that it got left behind.  Small price to pay for getting it back so quickly.

All in all not a bad trip.  I am aware of how many more things could have gone wrong.  But it was not relaxing, it was not short and it was in no way restful.  Thank goodness I had the rest of the trip to sleep....

I should have known better...

(Tomorrow - The Milwaukee Whirlwind)