Now boarding: flight never-thought-you'd-board to Ramstein.

The flight itself was delayed a few hours due to the catering crew not being ready.  The two-hour wait wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Although, that didn't put us on the plane until 1am.  The girls were AWESOME, though.  I mean, they usually are in bed, passed out by 8pm.  They were rockstars and did very little complaining. 

When we got on the plane, our seats were good and bad.  Good because they were very close to the restroom.  I hate to go to the restroom and leave my children.  And bad because we were the third to last row.  It was a double-decker plane with 100 rows.  Or maybe not that many, but it sure felt like it.  Dragging Emerson's carseat through the aisles was the worst.  Lorelai was up ahead, running into people trying to find our row.  Emerson was stopping every two feet to bat her eyelashes, flirt or ask someone for a sucker.  Then I was behind her with the carseat up in the air, trying not to knock everyone's heads off.  

Our flight attendant was nice and helpful.  There were 100 empty seats on the plane, and I made sure to mention my whiny kids to anyone who came by to sit around us.  Many changed their minds quickly.  We finally got settled in, Emerson in her carseat (at least for takeoff), Lorelai next to her, and me across the aisle.  There were tvs on the headrests of every seat, so that was nice.  What wasn't nice is that they had video of the runway from a camera mounted under the belly of the plane.  Talk about nasty motion sickness.  Blech.

After takeoff, I noticed all the seasoned travelers assuming the position.  Many had already sprawled out onto the open seats and fallen asleep.  The lady behind us was traveling with her 5 and 7 year olds.  When I turned around, she was already asleep on the seats, curled up with her youngest, and her oldest was on the floor, racked out, covered in blankets.  That family slept the ENTIRE flight.  Even through Emerson’s screams – I’ll get to that in a minute.

So, I did my best to get the kids situated while I had a chance.  I had Emerson lying next to me, on the next two seats.  Lorelai was extremely uncomfortable sleeping in her seat, so she was flipping around crazily, and you could tell she was miserable.  When I stood up to get her comfortable, I turned around and noticed Emerson had taken a nose-dive off the row of seats and had landed on her belly on my backpack.  Her head was on the floor, her legs shooting straight up in the air.  She was still asleep.  As much as I wanted to leave her there and snap a picture, I figured that would be frowned upon. 

So, in the end, Lorelai ended up sprawled out on the seats and I was sitting with Emerson in my lap.  The poor kid couldn’t get comfortable.  She was hot. She was cold.  She flipped.  She flopped.  Then she’d fall asleep for a few minutes and wake up screaming that she was “scaaaaared!  There’s a kitty cat getting me!”  I’m pretty sure I got a few winks of sleep in the 8 hour flight.  And by a few winks, I mean like maybe 10 minutes.

It was long.  It was painful.  And by the end, I was wondering if maybe a C-17 would have been a better way to go.  We’ll see on the return flight, if I end up getting a C-17, maybe I can compare and I’ll feel differently.

So, aside from the sleepless flight and Emerson peeing through her nighttime diaper, we made it safe and sound.  

I was told jet lag lasted two solid days.  They.  Weren’t.  Kidding.

How Emerson kept busy in the airport...color wonders

 How Lorelai kept busy - being as far away from Emerson as possible, playing her little magnetic fishy game (thank you, Dollar Store!!!)

 Emerson, ready to party on the plane - this was at about 1:00am

 Lorelai, DONE partying. 

 Ahhh.........to sleep, flat out.....until 11:00am the next day.....that's jet lag for ya.