While not sleeping on the plane, I did have a chance to catch up on some movies I’ve missed.  I watched Divergent, after just finishing the book last month.  I thought it did a good job.  And the guy is hot.

I also watched the Lego Movie.  I wasn’t as blown away, but it was cute.  And everything is awesome is crazy catchy.  I defy you to watch this and not get it stuck in your head for hours.

But—other than jet lag—things are pretty awesome here!  It does not feel real.  We were fairly quiet on the drive from the airport, just soaking it in.  Different trees.  Ruins.  Rome.

I love our place, and I think we will be happy here.  The location seems great.  We have good space.  Good water pressure.  The welcome kit is amazing.  We heard horror stories of only receiving three plates, a mug, and sandpaper sheets.  But we have sheets, towels, and an almost fully-stocked kitchen.  There are even carpets we didn’t know about.

If anything, there is too much here.  I wish we had packed less.  When our sea freight gets here (in October?), things could get interesting.  This is small, but no garbage disposal.  I need to figure out how this works.  Obviously no chunks of food, but is it going to back up if wash sauce on plates down the drain?

Jet lag with kids is no joke.  After we arrived at our place, around 1100 local, we all ended up crashing for several hours.  Everyone went to bed on time, but both kids were up a few hours later.  After several fruitless attempts to induce more sleep, I gave up and hung out with them a few hours, before putting them back to bed.

Nap times were more on schedule today.  I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll be close to normal in a few days.

Our awesome sponsor did some initial grocery shopping.  We did a little more, at the conveniently located supermarket a few blocks away, and—other than our gelato—have been eating at home.  First trip to a restaurant could be tomorrow.

I am trying to remember that all things take time.  We did just get here.  Eventually, our things will be unpacked.  I’ll lose some more baby weight.  Italian women seem impossibly thin.  So far, I’ve seen moms in backless tops and shorty shorts.  And I’ll work on Italian.  In my sleep deprived haze, these things just seem impossible.

But things are gorgeous.  Right now, all of the flora-filled balconies are enchanting.  I’m really excited.  Even if it doesn’t feel real yet, this feels good.

Non-seq:  Just finished Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowlings second Cormoran Strike mystery.  Loved it.  Not sure why I am only just now realizing that I really like mysteries.

Work harder to get an infant bassinet.  That’s all I got.

 In Little Mister’s defense, he did try.  It seems he reached the most unhelpful airline employee ever who told him that bassinets are first come, first served.  The employee neglected to mention that bassinets only fit with the bulkhead seats.  Some comfort that bulkhead seats were already gone by the time he asked.

 So I held Mac.  Pretty much all the way across the Atlantic.  I thought he might sit in his carrier (Lillebaby – like a Bjorn), to at least leave my arms free, but he rejected it. 

 James had the less arm-taxing, but more unpredictable task of keeping Henry from sliding off the seats.  We had the whole middle of the plane—four seats across—and, after Henry was pried away from the in-flight entertainment (he watched the new Muppets movie), he slept well on the plane, lying down in the middle two seats.  James also navigated the in-flight meal service with Henry and the bathroom changing tables with Mac.

 All in all, it was much better than expected.  We got a few comments after the flight that the kids were “sooo good.”  I was grateful that we were not “those people with the screaming children on the plane.”  Note to self:  business plan where you escort people’s children on planes and they can sit somewhere else and pretend not to know you.

 So James and I did not sleep.  But we made it.  We successfully navigated Customs.  All our luggage was there.  We were able to fit our luggage on two carts.  And I was beyond relieved when we made it out and our sponsor was waiting with a (car-seat equipped!)  van to whisk us to our new home.

I did something I swore I would not do.  I bought pants.  Pants of a more “relaxed” nature.

You see, last pregnancy around, I swore I would not buy new clothes.  I would fit into my old clothes or else goshdarnit.  Even if it meant wearing my maternity pants for 5 months straight and then uncomfortably squeezing into my “real” pants.  So that’s what I did.

Fast forward to post-second pregnancy.  I am so sick of maternity pants.  Full panels are hot.  It is hot outside.  Thankfully weight has come off.  But if I’m going to make it back sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to put down the ice cream.  And I really don’t want to.  It is hot outside.

I’ve also been feeling wardrobe deprived.  I went with a pretty hyper-minimalist approach on pregnancy clothing.  This is an exaggeration, but I feel like I could count on both hands and a foot the number of things I bought.  This means I feel like I haven’t bought new clothes in forever.  I’ve been reading a lot of AintNoMomJeans (recently rebranded TheMomEdit).  I love her style.  It made me miss clothes.  I have about 50 shopping tabs open that are making my computer impossible to restart.

So I took a baby step.  An inexpensive baby step.  I have been buying less Old Navy these days on my quest for quality over quantity.  But it seemed like a good place to go for low commitment.  I bought these pants.  And these.  And I’ve been rocking the harem ever since.  They fit into my favorite uniform of white shirt + loud pants.

They are outrageously comfortable.  The lightweight fabric has made them nice for the summer.  But I do worry that they are a bit too pajama-like to be socially acceptable.  But at least James–who is not known for being a fashion risk-taker–is on board.  When asked for the umpteenth time whether the pants looked ok, whether they looked like pajamas, he responded:  “No.  But if they are pajamas, they are the fanciest in the land.”

I’m still hoping to regain access to my previous wardrobe.  But until then #FancyPajamasFTW.

Listen up, troops.  We are going to attack this beach in three waves.  First, group, you’re with me.  You lot are a small team, but have the most essential stuff.  We’ll attack right away.

Next wave will be a larger group, but still small.  You guys will follow in 1-2 weeks.

The bulk of the battalion will follow in 6-8 weeks.  Probably closer to 8.  Maybe more.  You don’t really know how freight will be.

The rest of you peeps will stay here.  Until we all come back.  In three years.  Got it?  OK MOVE.

Obviously this would be a terrible battle plan.  Maybe in some kind of time-warped campaign?  I really can’t think of a feasible scenario.  And it would definitely make a terrible movie.

But this is how our packing went down.  We all (including the infant) get two bags of carry-on.  Then about 700 pounds to follow soon-ish.  Anything else will be later, and the rest will go to storage.

James coordinated the moving effort last Thursday and Friday.  (I took kids to the pediatrician and then settled into our airbnb in SE.)  The way it sounds is that James spent two days telling a team of 3-5 people what goes where.  In an ideal world, we would have had a spare bedroom or more room to separate things.  I found prepping to pack particularly tough because so many things to come quickly are daily use items that I needed up until the end.

Our attempt to set aside 700 pounds of stuff was laughable.  We came up close to 400.  That included ALL of the kids’ toys and books, extra clothing, kitchen stuff, diapers, towels, sheets, and pillows.  I hoped to add extra kitchen stuff if we were light (suspected), but at that point it was already packed.  We had been told that they would pack the 700 pounds of air freight before moving on to other things.  Oh, well.

Our place is partially furnished so a lot went into storage.  Even though we pared down significantly, I have a feeling that it will seem that we over-packed later.  Let the culling continue!

I did it!  I named the puppy.  After much deliberation, I picked a blog name and locked it down, along with corresponding gmail and twitter handles.  

This was hard for me.  Why so difficult?  I have a lot of themes I’d like to cover.  Some go together, some not really.  I wanted a title to cohesively pull together:

• life after biglaw
• my attempts at parenting two wee ones
• minimalism and simplicity
• prepping to leave the country
• attempts at writing
• adventures in Rome
• food

And I’m sure other things that I’m now forgetting.  I happened to be whining about how hard picking a blog title was to my family (#firstworldproblems) when they congregated for my darling niece’s baptism.  Because I’m so tickled–both by the titles and the fact that they even tried–I wanted to share their suggestions:

• Rooming in Rome
• Mommy Gladiator-something idea
• Spaghetti on the wall
• Spicy meatball
• Call and see em
• To Roam with Love
• The Italian Blog
• Gelato
• Italian Graffiti
• Renaissance Dare/woman/something
• Ciao bella/chow bella
• Project runaway to rome
• A Roma Therapy
• The/my Roman forum
• Something with roman numerals
• Fiddling in Rome
• Caesar’s commentaries
• Hadrian’s wall
• Circus minimus
• Rome Antics
• Something with a play on rom-com like Romemantic comedy…rome-antics

I settled on Roman Reboot as something that could conceivably cover all the topics.  Also, in case I’m blogging years from now after we leave Rome, I didn’t think I’d hate the title even though it has “Roman” in it.  Because this is what I’d like to capture.  My efforts on trying something different to create the life that I want.  I like many things about my current life and some I will miss very much.  Leaving the law (temporarily?) and moving to a foreign country are a pretty big course correction.  I hope not an over-correction.  I guess will see and tweak again if needed.