Moving is the gift that keeps on giving. We moved back into our Baltimore townhouse in late August. We spent most of September at the beach, and have managed to probably unpack and put away less than 70% of our stuff. That can be fixed with a couple days of motivated unpacking, but the minor details of moving continue to linger. The most notable of those is getting to the MVA to register our out of state cars in Maryland. I’ve moved twice in the last eleven years. First to Maine, then to Rhode Island. In both cases I moved for Sara’s school/career. And in both cases I end up changing my drivers license, while Sara never does. I’ve already made one trip to get my Maryland license back. I’m a sucker!

A trip to the MVA is something you put off as long as (legally) possible. It’s never enough to just go there. You almost have to take a trip out first to make sure you know what you need to bring when you really go. In this case, I needed to get both cars inspected first. I needed to get the lienholder of one car to send the title to the state. And I needed a bill of sale notarized for the second car we received as a gift from my grandmother. My hope was I could put this off long enough so that I wouldn’t have to go with Cam. Unfortunately that was never an option. In fact, I was only able to get enough done for one car at a time, so I’ll be going back again one more time!

My first mistake was doing this on the day after Daylights Savings. I’ve never really understood Daylight Savings. I get that it has to do with farming, but otherwise seems outdated to me. In my wilder days, I always appreciated the extra hour of “sleep” on Sunday. As a father, its a nightmare. I mentioned in my previous blog about the need for a routine. That includes finding activities to get out of the house, but the core of any successful day centers around feeding and nap times. This extra hour business has screwed all of that up. He had his worst nights sleep in months on Saturday. And Sunday was a mess. It quickly became clear that this isn’t a one day thing. Our routine won’t be the same for a while. With elections this week, I’d like to vote against Daylights Savings day!

The MVA is the worst. You check in quickly, which leads to a misguided feeling that you won’t be trapped there as long as you thought. Overhead there are constant announcements of letters and numbers, but none of them are yours. Not even close. It’s the world’s longest and worst game of bingo. But you can’t go anywhere because if they do call your number and you aren’t there, that’s that. Add an 8-month-old to the mix, and I really was dreading this trip.

Our closest full-service MVA is in Essex. If you are in the business of making fun of Baltimore stereotypes, get on up to Essex! Your job gets pretty easy from there! It’s located in a strip mall, sandwiched between a Rite Aid and a Korean restaurant. We park just before 9:30am.

The line for tags and title is always a little shorter than the one for drivers licenses. I get up to the front very quickly. Check in, present my folder of paperwork and get my number: C11. Cam hasn’t fallen asleep yet as I had hoped. My best case scenario had him falling asleep in the car on our way. With the time change I really didn’t know when he’d get tired. Usually he’s asleep between 10 and 11, so this was early, but not really. He was fine though, I came armed with enough formula to last the whole day, just in case. I brought extra toys knowing that even if nobody else was there, we’d be inside for an hour.

Number C5 was called right as we were finishing getting checked in, so I was a little optimistic that we wouldn’t be spending all morning there. It would at least 30 minutes before C6 was called. 30 more until we got to C9. Cam was getting restless with all the waiting. We’d done the formula thing, and he was full, but likes to play with the bottle anyway. Just to make a mess. He starts fussing around 10:00am or so, maybe 30 minutes in. As a “new” parent, I’m still very sensitive to my kid making a scene. Cam’s pretty quiet and will smile at everyone, but he has picked up a bad habit in recent weeks of just screaming at the top of his lungs. Not crying, or even fussing, but roaring like a Lion. He decided that the MVA was the place for him to practice some of this roaring.

The roaring often coincides with being tired, so I duck outside to get him some fresh air in hopes that he conks out for the remainder of this trip. Of course, my number could be called soon, so I can’t go far. Luckily I get him enough air that I can tell he’s starting to fade, we sneak back in to find a seat and try and get this done. He fell asleep around 10:15a, my number gets called 25 minutes later, and disaster is avoided. This time.

Like our airplane trip last Spring, the buildup was more stressful than the event in the end. Even so, I wouldn’t recommend taking an infant to the MVA. I wouldn’t recommend going to the MVA at all. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend forgetting to fax a form needed for your second car, so now you have to go back and do this all over again! Anyone want to babysit a week or so from now?!