It's not often that the kids "sleep in" past noon, but then again, it's not often that I'm doing laundry, watching movies, and eating noodles with the kids at 4 am! Gotta love jet lag with children!
If this sentence is familiar you might be my Facebook friend; this was my status on Tuesday. It’s Thursday now and I have to say that the jet lag is still in full force. That’s why we’re downstairs in the middle of the night again, this time organizing DVDs, writing in blogs, and eating breakfast since 3 AM.
Amazingly, people have told me before that kids handle jet lag really well. I would have to sincerely disagree. Kids hardly even handle day light savings well. Newborns can take weeks or months to get their nights and days straightened out. My kids never really even adjust to Pacific coast time when we visit our parents. Why would totally mixing up their days and nights by more than 12 hours away from home be even easier?
Really, if it were just Reuben and me we could adjust in a couple of days, no problem. For instance, he is sleeping right now while we are awake. Adults have reason, will, and a sense of consequence while children do not. Whenever the circumstances allow we can stay up or sleep in by pure will itself. Kids can not.
I have to admit that this last vacation was actually better than last time. Last time when we went to China I woke up every night from 2-5am watching the Olympics, ordering room service, and letting Ariana run around crazy all while both pregnant and breastfeeding. I didn’t have time to make up for the lost sleep, being my first time in China I actually wanted to go out and see it- which probably led to my very public display of fainting in the middle of a KFC on a very popular street in Beijing later in the week. After that Reuben made me use the hotel wheelchair for half a day.
That last time I had three full weeks of this as Ariana never adjusted to the time in China until the last day- when we had a very early flight and ironically had to wake her up early to get to the airport.
This time the kids missed every dinner in Japan but partway through our time in Taiwan they started eating with us again.
Reuben was really helpful this time in dealing with the children and their jet lag. He was the one who figured out to just put in a Baby Einstein video for Corban and leave it on repeat all night long. Really it was the trick and it’s what we’ve been doing while we’ve been home too the last couple of days. It helps but I think that the effect is wearing off of Corban as he spent most of the time between 12 midnight and 3:30 crying despite the background of Baby signing time.
For those who don’t have a lot of experience with Jet Lag I’ll tell you about it. You feel sick, achy, dizzy, nauseous and halfway out of your mind. It makes you feel tired and hungry at all the times you aren’t supposed to eat or sleep. That’s why an awesome meal of all you can eat crab and steak in Japan seemed like torture as I wasn’t hungry and wanted to just lay down. Really, I felt like I really could identify with war prisoners in some very small way at that point. (Except that I had already eaten that night more than most prisoners probably eat during their entire captivity.)
Anyhow, Jet lag sucks but vacations don’t. Even international vacations with children.
That’s why my facebook status for Wednesday reads:
Had a great vacation in Taiwan and Japan, ate lots of awesome food, saw new things, met with friends, shopped, then ate more food. Time for P90X and Insanity!
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