4 years 25 days

Day 1485. After just over 4 hours the alarm went off at 3:15 am, and we also had the hotel give us a wake-up call. We'd had two double beds, which is a little small for us. I moved Tammy to our bed to give Sammy a little more room, but that made it very tight in our bed. Thankfully Sammy only woke up one time crying and coughing.

We put socks and shoes on the kids, and Randy took some stuff down to the car. Then we all left with the rest of our stuff. When we got into the car, the kids could already see planes in the sky that were taking off and were really close, and they were excited. I was surprised at how awake they were.

We drove the 5 minutes to the airport and to the rental car return. It was 3:50 am. We were not the only ones returning a car. I got out of the car to get a cart, but there were no carts anywhere. What were we gonna do? Then Randy spotted one in the distance, and we secured it. Then I took off to find another cart, and soon I did, thank God. We loaded our 5 suitcases, 1 carry-on, 2 kids' carry-ons, two purses, a backpack, a plastic bag, 3 tablets and 3 pillows onto the two carts. I took one cart, and Randy the other, and he also had the wheelchair to push. Then we started our long walk to the terminal and the check-in. Some people started talking with Randy, and a nice lady started pushing Randy's chair. We got to the elevators and went up to the check-in level. Then we had to walk a bit to get to the United Airlines check-in counters, where the lady left us.

We waited a little, then it was our turn. Right away the lady wasn't very nice. She then started saying that this bag was 51 pounds and that one 52, and everywhere we neededt to take stuff out. It was 3 or 4 out of the 5 bags that she said were overweight. It was really annoying. We had to open them and take stuff out, partly to discard, partly to add to all the stuff we already had to carry on. It was really annoying. Then she said to wait over to the side for wheelchair assistance. Our helper actually got there before us. He said we could keep our cart, where we had put all our carry-on stuff. As we were approaching security, he said only one of us could go with Sammy. I had a hard time believing that and suggested we'd all try to go together.

We went through the weelchair line, and all five had our passports checked. Then they were really helpful with getting everything through the machine. We didn't even have to take the electronics out! They did pull aside two bags, but then returned them to us without having opened them. It all took quite some time.

Then we started walking in the direction of our gate. The guy pushed Sammy, while we had everything else. We reached our gate, where he put us by the wheelchair seats and left us. There was still over half an hour until boarding.

The lady at the gate was really nice. She gave us seats further up front, so we would not have to carry everything to the back of the plane. Then she took my carry-on with one purse on top into the plane and to our seats. I was even more amazed, when she then had the kids sit down on their dogs, and she pulled them all the way to the plane! Wow!

With all that help we made it to our seats in row 11 just fine. I sat with Tammy and Emmy on one side of the aisle, and Randy and Sammy on the other side, and she had left the sixth seat empty. The plane was pretty empty, so it was easy to do. The kids got a little packet with a toy and coloring book that they opened up right away. Most of the time they were on their tablets though. Randy and I were exhausted, but the kids did not want to sleep. Randy and Sammy got to sleep for a little while. Tammy and Emmy kept me up.

We landed in Newark (New York) at about 9 am local time (8 am Memphis time). We let everyone get off the plane first, then we made our move. The kids had to pull their dogs themselves, but Tammy did not want to. She started crying. But she had no choice. When got off the plane, Sammy's wheelchair was waiting for him. And there were a few helpers. We had signed up for wheelchair assistance, but as a mean lady at the gate made clear, we had our own wheelchair, and it was our own job as parents to push our child in the wheelchair. No assistance. It was pretty upsetting, given how much stuff we had to carry. Tammy was still crying, after her dog had fallen over and she had struggled to pull it that way. She calmed down, and we made it clear to the kids that they had no choice but to pull their dogs. Sammy was also screaming in his chair for some time.

But we walked on and on until we reached the elevator that would take us down to where the bus shuttle was leaving to take us to our terminal. When we got down there, we were told the shuttle started running at 1:30 pm, and it was only 11 am. So we got back on the elevator. A mean-looking airport employee was in there, but I still asked her whether she knew a comfy spot for us to go these next few hours. She then said that we could not take the shuttle bus anyway as there were stairs once you got off. She suggested we go out and then back in, but i sure wasn't gonna go through security again!

We went upstairs and sat down on a few seats right there to wait until it was time. The kids were on their tablets and playing, and Sammy was also playing with his duck and chasing it. I had made some sandwiches we were eating, and we had some snacks. Randy and I were closing our eyes at different times because we were so tired, but the kids never slept.

At 1:30 pm we packed up and took the elevator back down and lined up to get on the shuttle bus. Thankfully the line was moving fast. The employees there were also pointing out that there were stairs to master once we got off. The bus driver flipped out a ramp, and we all got onto the bus. All the seats were taken, but soon some nice people got up for the kids to sit down, and i got to as well. It took us a while, but finally we got off at our terminal. And they were not kidding. It looked like a back door, like an emergency exit staircase, that we needed to go up on. There were two long flight of stairs to master. People were really nice and offering to help. Two people helped carry stuff up, while Randy brought Sammy up first, then he carried the wheelchair upstairs. That was still better than going through security again.

We followed the signs and reached our gate, where there were hardly any people yet. We still had nearly 4 hours until leaving. We made ourselves comfortable, and the kids got their tablets out again. I tried to get Sammy to sleep and lay down on the floor with him, but he just thought it was the greatest thing in the world, having fun with Mommy on the floor, so there was no sleeping, just laughter and fun. He did slow down quite a bit after. Randy got to nap a little, and I had just a little bit of sleep before the change of terminals. I took advantage of having all this time to write my report.

By 4:30 pm they started pre-boarding, and we were second in line. I boarded with Emmy and Tammy, and we were sitting quite far in the back. They were working hard, pulling their carry-ons to their seats. Then there was a mix-up with people sitting in the wrong row, so they had to move for us to sit down. And then I was really annoyed, when we had the four middle seats plus one on the other side of the aisle. When we had checked in in Memphis, I had said to the unfriendly and unhelpful lady that we needed to have 3 seats and 2 seats separated by the aisle. She then explained how they don't separate families. But here we were with the highly impractical situation that had one person by themselves. The flight attendant was sympathetic, but said that the plane was really full, so there was nothing that could be done. I sat down in the middle seats with Tammy and Emmy. Emmy was disappointed as he was gonna sit by the window, his sister having been at the window on the first flight. Randy sat down with Sammy on the other side of the aisle, and Sammy fell asleep in his arms.

When it was time for takeoff, a flight attendant came over and said that Sammy had to get into his seat. She was very understanding and gave suggestions. I ended up switching seats with Randy, so he could gently slide him down to the seat, just enough to put a seatbelt on. That meant I was the one now in the single seat, and it did not take long until Emmy started crying for Mommy. They were all really tired by that time. He was sitting as far away from me as possible, in the first seat. There was nothing I could do. I kept repeating that I'd be back with him as soon as we were up in the air, but he was so tired that this assurance did not help him any. Then one of the ladies sitting close to Emmy started talking to him, distracting him, and giving him stickers, all to get him to stop crying, and it worked. As soon as we had taken off and just before the seat belt sign went off, I got up to switch seats with Randy again, and then sat between Emmy and Tammy, so they both got to have me.

They were excited about the TV screen and the kid movie selection and started watching. It did not take long for Emmy to fall asleep, and he ended up sleeping a long time, skipping dinner. Tammy, on the other hand, stayed up for a long time, had dinner, watched TV. Then she started crying and asking for a "hotel", which means she's really tired, and I put a pillow on the seat and had her lie down. She had two seats, so she could lay flat, while Emmy was rolled up on one seat with his legs on mine.

As if that wasn't enough, Randy gave me Sammy, but he was not ready to sleep, and he had never slept on me before, always only on Daddy. Not long after the first try Randy handed him to me again, as he was asking for me, and this time he fell asleep in my arms. I had Emmy on my left, his legs on mine, Sammy in my arms, and Tammy to my right. I could never get comfortable and was not able to sleep. When I needed to go to the bathroom, I asked Randy to take Sammy again, thinking he was in such a deep sleep he'd just continue sleeping on Daddy, but it didn't work out. Before I had even returned from the bathroom, I could hear all three kids crying for me. I sat down between them and took Sammy again, and all three fell asleep again. This time I was more comfortable and got a few minutes of sleep in as well.