Friday, January 19, 2007

Jet-Lag

I always tell people that traveling 14 or 15 hours on a plane with two young children is not all that difficult. With some preparation, a few good bribes, several sets of spare clothes, and an adult bribe of choice (I like caffeine and black licorice but some people prefer alcohol) you can go far. Literally. The problem is not the traveling itself, but rather the jet lag.

And that is the black hole I find myself in right now: two kids who sleep and eat at different times, who make it impossible for me to sleep, who I have to keep quiet at 3 am since we live in an apartment and I don’t want the neighbors to come bearing arms.

So forgive me for not blogging that much lately. I am too grumpy to say anything nice.

On top of that, it has probably become obvious that I have become a regular contributor over at printculture.com, and my turn is coming up next week. We’re doing a theme “top ten” two weeks and I have been racking my brains to think of something. But don’t worry, “Between pee and kimchee” is still my first blogging love, and I won’t ditch you guys for those guys. They don’t appreciate all my peeing stories like you guys do.

Once the kids get back on schedule and go back to school I’ll be back to my usual sarcastic self. I have lots of stuff I’ve been meaning to blog on. I swear on this latte.
Posted by at

3 comments:

oreneta said...

Ok, I've flown with my kids when they were little quite a bit, and I am not sure how much I am with you about the flight being not too bad. However, I am completely there about the jet lag. It is the worst. Nothing like one child awake and miserable and hungry at 3am, finally get them settled and the other gets up. UGH.

Good luck, as you know, at least it doesn't last too long.

8:18 PM
Anonymous said...

Gah. The flight alone is difficult for me and I can't imagine doing it with kids. I think my husband already thinks I was enough of a baby about the jet lag.

10:35 AM
Corey said...

I feel torn between being delighted that the next time we do a flight to Europe, my daughter will have to be in her own seat - yippee, finally my lap will be allowed to be free now and then! But then again, I'm so frustrated with how much the flight will cost. We have to start saving now for two years from now. Arghhh.

This last flight to Europe and back was ok but my husband and I were already tired out before we even got on the plane. I think that good night's sleep before the flight always does me good.

As for jet lag, well, after the kids arrived, I realized that jet lag was just kind of like getting up and down in the night to deal with the kids. Sleep deprivation was the norm so jet lag was just a variation on that whole theme.

However, this last visit, it was HORRIBLE! We all slept well and at the same time but we kept waking up at 4:00 in the afternoon and NO ONE had the heart to wake us up earlier (we didn't bring an alarm clock with us). I kept telling them, WAKE US UP by 9:00 am! But they'd always say, "Awww, you clearly needed your sleep so I didn't want to wake you." I kept trying to explain, "If you don't wake us up then we will NEVER get onto the right sleeping schedule!" Finally we got an alarm clock from my brother-in-law and things got better.

6:49 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)