A recap of our Europe trip is coming, but I’ll start with the end – the reentry phase – since that’s what we’re dealing with now.
And it’s a bit of a bear.
We returned home on Tuesday afternoon and now, Friday morning, I’m finally feeling close to normal. Jetlag is cruel, and even harsher when young kids are involved. Even if I’m sleeping ok that goes out the window if one of the kids decides to wake up for the day at, say 2:30am. This week’s return was made more challenging by Alistair getting sick on Wednesday, running a high fever with some stomach issues thrown in for good measure. Finding ourselves at the pediatrician 24 hours after returning home was certainly suboptimal. (For those concerned grandparents: he’s fine. The fever went down on its own eventually, he’s still on a bland diet for the GI stuff, but is back to his normal self.)
Given the challenges of returning home, and to all of the demands of home (work, school, laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc etc), it’s easy to think that we must be totally nuts to attempt crossing so many timezones with two little kids, let alone to have done it so many times before, and to be planning on doing it again in the spring. I’ve found myself thinking no never again. Not until Jurgen is at least 4.
But today, having managed to stay in bed til 6am (even if awake, nursing a fidgeting Jurgen for 90 minutes prior to getting up), I’m already feeling better. I’m feeling like it’s worth it. The kids are happy, healthy, and happy to be home, but we also have so many great memories from 2 weeks of togetherness, exploring new places. Hearing Alistair talk about the trip to others has been especially fun this time – an auditory glimpse into his highlight reel. Maybe we’re crazy, but we think the positives of travel with the littles vastly outweigh the negatives.
