Landing Gear

We arrived in Italy late Thursday evening, rain falling lightly outside the airport terminal as Franco and Jacovich wheeled our mountain of luggage to a waiting van and somehow, miraculously, loaded it all in, fitting each piece in like vertical jigsaw puzzle.

I don't recommend traveling with children ever. I used to, but then I had more than 1, and I changed my perception of what is fun, feasible, and rational. Traveling is none of those things so long as more than one in your party are crapping in their own pants and/or unresponsive to sleep-inducing medications.

Speaking of medications, the bleepity bleeping British version of the TSA confiscating not one but three bottles of baby Tylenol and about 40 containers of baby food whilst whisking through security at Heathrow. F word. Out loud. In front of mah children.

"Do you have a prescription for this?"

A hateful Brit dangled my bag of baby booty above a ravaged carry-on bag, a bag that had already been screened in Denver, mind you, and hadn't really been anywhere besides, oh, the plane and this freaking connecting airport.

"For my Up and Up brand ibuprofen and benedryl?" No, no I don't ... but please give me your phone number and home address so that I may send you hate mail and late-night prank calls involving screaming, teething children who cannot be sedated.

Miss congeniality helpfully offered to open 6 containers of pureed delish and allow me to 'safety test' each one by eating a bite in front of her, but I was simply too focused on catching our connection to Rome to play her game, so I snarled and peeled out in search of our gate, with shit spilling everywhere from the stroller.

"You're going the wrong way, madam."

Literally growling by this point, I whiplashed the children in a brisk about-face and headed towards the gate, realizing about 100 feet shy of the desk that I hadn't seen my purse in a while...

We didn't make that connection.

3 painful hours and one very embarrassing spectacle of public affection later we were finally leaving Heathrow, booked helpfully onto the next Rome flight by a stoic British Airways employee after my errant diaper purse had been located and returned into my sniveling, hyperventilating paws. Stuffed with lip glosses, baby gear and 900 euro in cold, hard cash, I was a hot hot mess until I had it back.

Idiot.

So anyway, that was day one. When we finally got to our apartment that evening, Dave ran out for beer and pizza, and we sat around the table gulping Peronis and staring at each other in stupified awe.

We'd done it; we'd moved to Italy.