sloooooowly settling in

It's slow going over here, but we're getting settled, I think. Our movers ran a few days late, so we were in the new house for about a week without any of our stuff or the opportunity to start unpacking. We camped out with the travel crib, air mattress, and Bailey's bed all in Maya's new room. This was our living room for the week.

For me, settling in has been a mixture of familiarity and change. We lived in Charlottesville for four years before moving to Boston, so there's a sort of muscle memory to moving back. But it was a different time for us (med school, mid-twenties), and a lot happened in the last three years. So while we recognize the area and are lucky enough to have some great friends to fall back into step with, it's still all very different.

We built quite a life in Boston--we became parents there. So I miss things like the bar/restaurant down the street that we frequented at least twice a week on average. It goes without saying that I miss the people we used to frequent it with. It was the place that made us feel normal again after having Maya. When it was cold, we'd zip her into her down Patagonia bunting and she'd sleep on Anil's chest in the Baby Bjorn while we clinked pint glasses. And when it warmed up, I'd strap on the Bjorn and Maya and I would walk down to meet my friend Katie for a beer on the patio. It was so empowering and exciting to have made it to that point. It may sound cliche, but I felt like the "cool new mom" that I hoped I could be. Actually, I just felt like myself again, just with a bit of a jelly belly, but that's where the placement of the Bjorn is brilliant.

We went to dinner at this place, American Craft, part of what we called our beer theme park (Belgium bar, bottle shop, and craft beer bar), on our last night in town. As we left, one of the managers said he'd see us the same time tomorrow, and we told him we were literally getting in the car to drive to Virginia right then. One of the waiters joked that they were going to go under without our constant business.

Then we got ready to leave. This was about when I lost it.

Charlottesville has been good to us, though. Two days after the movers came, we went to the Outer Banks for a week (beach baby pics to come), so this is really our first week unpacking and figuring out what to do with ourselves. So far, that includes getting lunch at a new taco place three days in a row. And we've gone to our old haunt, South Street Brewery, for beers, the past two days in a row. We're creatures of habit; we just have an extra creature in tow with us now. A little one.

we're here!

Team Shukla made it to Charlottesville, pretty much intact. Here is the highlight reel, in the order that my brain can recall:

• On Tuesday, we decided to break the trip up into two days, starting in about five hours from when we made that decision. So Anil and I hauled around town during the day Tuesday so that we could start our drive right after dinner. We figured it would correspond with Maya's bedtime, around 7 p.m., so it made more sense to drive four or so hours at night when she would be asleep rather than gamble with the morning. We'd also rather be awake later at night than earlier in the morning. We powered through New York and New Jersey that night, arriving at a dog friendly hotel in New Jersey at 1 a.m. Maya was a champ; she went right to sleep at the hotel and gave us a good chunk of rest.

• Have you heard that while Benedryl makes most people drowsy, when given to some children it can actually make them really hyper instead? Our dog is one of those children. Bailey is a terrible passenger in the car. He whines incessantly on city roads, only mellowing out on the interstate. So we asked the vet if we could give him something to take the edge off of the long drive, and they said, sure, give him Benedryl. Internet, it made him unbearable. He whined the entire drive. So much worse than usual, which is already bad enough that we wanted to drug him. After the first night we figured he was just really anxious because of the move, so the next morning we gave him three pills instead of just two. And he got even worse! Whining, barking, pacing in the back of the Subaru. By the afternoon though, he was back to his usual level of annoyance, when the pills wore off. That's when our lightbulbs went on. No more Benedryl for Bailey.

• At around midnight, somewhere in New York, Anil's dad got a speeding ticket. We had two cars in Boston, so we drove one with the dog and baby, and Anil's dad followed us in the other car that was filled with our stuff for the interim between furnished homes (i.e. lots of stuff for the baby + our toothbrushes). We incredulously saw him pull over in response to blinking lights in the rearview mirror, so we pulled to the side of the road, and the longest fifteen or so minutes EVER ensued. Bailey flipped out. He woke up Maya, who started screaming. I was freaking out about a semi running into us because it's notoriously not a good idea to pull to the side of the highway in the middle of the night, Anil was cursing the state of New York. Just as we were ready to meet at the next exit, we saw the Jeep pull back onto the highway, so we did the same and got on our way. Anil's dad said it was his first ticket since 1975. When did all the highways go back to 55 MPH?

• If you ever need to plan a trip on the interstate, do not ask Anil or me for advice on where to stop along the way. We pick the worst exits. It was always either a route with a sign that said "Exxon 2 miles" after we'd taken the exit, or, in one case, a "travel center" in Baltimore that wasn't so much a plaza of fast food with a vast expanse of restrooms as it was a Greyhound station/drug depot. The bathroom's sinks were all missing. Anil's dad went in to get us some food, because we were starving and didn't want to stop again (this was the second attempt at lunch after a gas station revealed no acceptable options; to be fair, we didn't realize our options could get more unfortunate). When he realized that a whole pizza was cheaper than three individual slices, we ended up walking out of there with a giant pizza box, from which we ate in the parking lot.

• We missed traffic in every major area (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, even D.C.), until we hit northern Virginia. Then we chugged along at snail's pace for three hours! We were sooooo close and yet the GPS kept pushing our arrival time later and later. It was torture. Maya was over the drive by then too. She was a trooper the entire time, but enough is enough, so she was wailing for the last hour or so. At least the Benedryl/cocaine had worn off of Bailey by that time.

We're at the house in Charlottesville now. We stayed in Richmond for two nights to take advantage of the creature comforts of a house with furniture, but now we're getting settled in our new digs, as much as you can on an air mattress (and travel crib), anyway. We're throwing a 4th of July backyard-warming party, so while the house is pretty much empty, we've set up patio furniture and a grill. We've sat out there the past two nights, drinking a beer while Maya sleeps happily in her new room and Bailey surveys his new turf, commenting on how odd it seems to have people be so nice, and on how many stars you can see in the sky above our deck.