Day 1 (Montage)

• Packing. That's all Day 0 and behind, so no need to dwell on it anymore.
• Driving to the airport.
• First saying goodbye to my mother.
• Saying goodbye to my father.
• So much luggage. So, so much luggage. Three pieces (+carry-on, +personal item) per person sounds not at all excessive for moving halfway across the world. Add a stroller, a carseat, winter coats, and some plane food, and it still sounds reasonable--perhaps on the skimpy side, even. Get to the airport, and suddenly it seems not skimpy at all. Get to security, and the non-checked items alone seem rather a lot. Get to the gate and begin to deeply wish we had brought less stuff. Walk on the plane and meet Israeli flight attendants and have a panic attack.
• Say the right words to make the head flight attendant stop haranguing us.
• Take a Buspar.
•  Realize that there is, in fact, less legroom on this trans-Atlantic flight than we've ever had on a domestic flight.
• Be grateful that El-Al doesn't care even a little bit if your stuff is under the seat in front of you or under your feet, instead.
• Fly.
• Get compliments on well-behaved baby. 
• Hold baby while standing up for rest of flight, because even without hubris, sometimes he just needs to cry if I sit down, or G-d forbid, put him in his car seat.
• Make friends with all of the passengers.
• Be met with joyful disbelief every time we tell an Israeli that we are making aliyah. Now. This flight.
• Meet an amazing woman who offers to hold the baby and then explains that she has 7 grandchildren and rocks him to sleep. All the way to sleep. Thank you, young-looking savta! Thank you!
• Enjoy the 45 minute nap the baby takes and nearly fall asleep just as he wakes up.
• Discover that the baby absolutely loves children.
• Keep baby from shrieking with laughter at 6 year old girl a few seats over.
• Land.
• Be grateful we get to disembark last.
• Discover that this of all flights empties terrifyingly quickly and the flight attendants are back, informing us in no uncertain terms that this plane needs to be cleaned and turned around, get off get off get off how can we help get off tell us how to help seriously get off the plane get off get off get off.
• Get off the plane.
• Thank everyone profusely for their help and apologize. Be told, "Why should you feel bad? Mazal tov, and best of luck!" It isn't until hours later that I begin to try to make sense of this. It has to do with being Israeli, I think.
• Get paperwork done. No, getting my ID card is not emotional. It's good, because that's one more bit of paperwork that's done with, but that's it.
• Get luggage.
• Discover how mortified I really am at the amount of stuff we brought. Joke that we need a bus, not a taxi. Take a 15-seater bus to our new home. There is one other passenger. And all of our stuff.
• Arrive at the kibbutz, bring stuff into apartment. Happily discover that the two-room nothing of an apartment we were told to expect has, in fact, three not-tiny rooms and lots more closets/cabinets than we expected.
• Eat lunch, unpack a little, bathe baby, shower, take an hour-nap that becomes a four-hour nap.
• Unpack a little more, eat dinner that husband kindly brought back from dining hall, blog, go back to sleep.