Voluntary Evacuation

This story begins on March 16th, very late in the evening. Because of the worsening nuclear crises in Japan, US Naval Base Yokosuka issued a voluntary evacuation of dependents. This means that you could go if you wanted to, but did not have to. However, since it was also decided that Chad would be leaving with the ship in a few days, I could not stay there alone with the kids (nor did I want to). So I called United and changed all our flights to Friday March 18th. United did this free of charge. They also refunded my brother's ticket that had been scheduled for the next week. And since we would have to leave fairly early to get to the airport on Friday, that gave me one day to pack up an entire apartment that we had lived in for 2 1/2 months. Not fun. The fear of traveling alone with the kids under such circumstances managed to give me travel's stomach instantly and I was popping antacid pills all the next day. I didn't sleep well that night and was very tired as I packed and packed and packed all the next day. Things were prioritized into high, medium and low priority. I would take two bags with me to the airport as long as I didn't have to take the train alone. That left two mightily heavy suitcases for Chad to carry with him onto the ship and his backpack for his own personal belongings. Everything else in the apartment was either left or tossed out. Some items were placed in a friend's apartment in hopes that all our stuff may be there should we return someday (things for the apartment like mattress topper, toaster oven, etc.). Chad also had to make a run to the library to return some books we had checked out. Thankfully a friend with a car helped him do that at the last minute.
So back to me leaving. Thankfully there were several moms and their kids leaving on the same day and even on the same flight as me. The two that I traveled with were Tish and Kelli, and I honestly don't know if I could have made it without them. A bus had been arranged for us to take us from the base to the airport since none of the guys could get any time off to accompany us on the train. The bus was a huge blessing as it had a space for our luggage and dropped us off right at Terminal 2. Tristan even took a short nap as a bonus. Once we got to the airport we were a bit confused as to when and where we should check-in and we walked all the way to one end and back (5 kids, 3 moms and plenty of bags). We found out that we couldn't check in for at least another 2 hours so we found a place on the floor and let the kids play while we took turns watching them.









After 2 hours we found the end of our very long line and began our slow walk to the front. Now, that morning as I was getting ready, completely overwhelmed and with tears in my eyes, said a prayer "please God, just show me to today that you love me". Now normally I wouldn't offer up such desperate cries, but it truly felt like a desperate situation with such an enormous task at hand. Back to the line. We had not moved all that far when a United attendant grabs us out of line (those with young children) and checks us in at Business class. No line at all. And as Kelli said "God must be shining down on us", I knew that he truly was.
After checking in we needed lunch and the kids proclaimed McDonalds which sounded easy so that's where we went. The McDonald's menu was extremely limited with only 6 or so sandwiches, fries and drinks to choose from. All tables were taken so we once again situated ourselves on the floor and ate our lunch, which really wasn't that bad for McDonalds. Tristan ate his lunch out of his feeding trough bib (it has such a large pocket that I just put the food in there and he grabs it out and eats it)! Once lunch was finished it was time to go through security. The security lines were running so smoothly that we made it through in about 30 minutes, and we didn't even have to take our shoes off! After arriving at our gate, we still had another 2 hours until we could even board the plane so the kids made themselves comfy (this time in chairs!) and the moms took turns shopping and using the bathroom. I had fun buying some souvenirs and Tristan took another bonus nap in the stroller. I saw many areas of the airport that had caution tape around them because of damage from the earthquake.
Well, we finally made our way onto the airplane and settled in. Tristan decided to poop his pants shortly after takeoff and I unfortunately had to wait to change my squirmy baby until after the fasten seat belt signs were turned off. He happily played in front of me and Abby and Jamie for awhile. Now the only bad part of our trip was the guy in front of me who after the first hour or two turns around and says "can you please stop pushing on my seat?" (in a not very nice way). Now I honestly didn't know what to say. How could this man be unhappy with my non-crying baby? I told him that "he's just playing, if I hold him in my lap he'd just cry", because he wasn't even pushing on the seat or kicking it or anything, he was simply walking in front of my legs brushing up against the seat. The man replied "I don't know what to tell you". And I felt like saying I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU! How could this man not realize that the whole plane was filled with women and children, 18 lap infants and several small children too. I don't know if I saw any dads! Everyone was doing their best so I all could resolve to say was "I'll try". I certainly didn't want to make a scene but there's no way I could promise to keep my infant still for 8.5 hours either! But thankfully shortly after that, dinner was served and Tristan ate most of Abby's and I somehow managed to eat mine without him getting it (I don't think I chewed). We took some walks around the plane and I had to change another dirty diaper and put him in jammies but then once dinner was cleaned up, I made him a bottle and he actually fell asleep! Which was SO much better than our flight over there. His naps throughout the day helped him not be too tired and besides that I didn't give him any benadryl which seems to have an opposite effect on at least Jamie and Tristan. Tristan slept for about 5 hours. Sometimes he'd wake up and I'd have to walk and rock him a bit but he always went back to sleep. Abby ended up falling asleep too after she finished watching Rapunzel. Jamie's DS ran out of batteries since he had played all day in the airport. I thought about giving him mine but told him to try and get some sleep instead and he did. At one point Abby woke up and started in on one of her middle-of-night-completely-irrational-screaming-and-kicking fits. Tish took Tristan for awhile so I could take her into the bathroom, get some jammies on her, and bring her back to reality. I made her seat cozy with a blanket and pillow and she fell back to sleep. Both Jamie and Abby, at separate times, ended up sleeping while kneeling on the floor with their head on the seat. At one point I put Tristan on the floor and snapped a few pictures.



I was hoping Tristan would stay asleep on the floor but apparently it's not as comfortable as his mom and he woke up within 5-10 minutes. My kids slept through breakfast and on Chad's advice I did not eat mine (he says it always makes him nauseous shortly after landing), which kinda makes sense since it feels like it's the middle of night for you. Everyone did end up waking up about an hour from landing. Tish held Tristan again for me while I filled out the customs forms and packed up our bags. Once we landed the people across from us said the kids did pretty good considering and commented that "I had my hands full", yes, quite literally as I slung bag over bag over bag over shoulder to get off the plane with baby on one hip. Twelve strollers had been checked in at the gate so we all had to line up and wait ours. Customs went smoothly and we were finally allowed to go home! My dad picked us up in our van and he drove us to a home that had only been ours for a mere 5 weeks before we left. The kids remembered it well and were quite content with exploring it and all their long lost toys. I walked around like a zombie considering I had been awake at that point for over 24 hours. My dad stayed so that I could get some sleep and my mom came over after work to help out too. My dad picked us up some pizza for dinner and then I went to bed again while my mom played with the kids and then put them to bed too (but wisely kept them up until their proper bedtime). Tristan awoke a few times and I had to give him an extra bottle in the middle of the night. Abby woke up too and at 2 am we ate pizza and chocolate together (after all, it was dinner time back in Japan). After that everyone adjusted quite quickly, back to normal within another few days.
In recap, I just have to say that everything went much better than I expected. At nearly every step of the way I was pleasantly surprised. But the emotional toll that the last few weeks have took on me has been enormous, from the earthquakes to the tsunami warning, to evacuating and now being apart from Chad is all really hard. I still have many happy memories and pictures from Japan to blog about and hopefully I'll feel up to it soon.