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We just returned from a three-week trip to California and then Florida. Just a few notes about jetlag with a 6-year-old.
- [Me, sleeping soundly last night, resting from an exhausting journey and beginning the recovery from a three-week vacation]
[knock-knock-knock]
Sequoia, in increasingly loud whispers from the doorway: Mom… Moooommmm… MOM!
Me: grgdldgl
Sequoia: I wanna cuddle
Sequoia gets into our bed. Paul brings it to my attention that it is only 11:00 pm.
Me: grgdldgl
I hug my beautiful child to my chest, knowing that I do not have many of these moments left in my lifetime, and I stroke her arm until she falls asleep. She then begins to kick me and throw her leg across my face. I contemplate tossing her off the balcony. - After Sequoia kicked me in the face throughout my sleep-wake-sleep, somehow I woke–at noon–to find her asleep in a ball at my feet. I nudged her and we got out of bed. I soon found her sitting naked on the toilet, folded forward, draped like she was hung over from New Year’s Eve.
-The dog has no idea what time it is, what with Sequoia wandering in and out of our room at all hours of the night. Flash’s nighttime activity:
“It’s pitch black and I just went to bed an hour ago, but it must be morning!” Hobble out of bed. Drag blanket across floor, stuck to collar. Shake self and jingle metal tags on collar so that anyone who was still asleep is now awake. Give a half-ass whimper to be let out. Realize that no one is getting out of their bed. Hobble back into bed. Sit up and beg to be tucked in. Wait to see if Paul reminds Kari “it’s your own damn fault for ever tucking him in in the first place”. Fart. Settle in. Snore, just to remind everyone you don’t have jetlag. Fart again. Repeat entire process the next time someone seems to be waking up.
-While lying awake from 0400 until the civilized 0600 we made Sequoia wait until before emerging from our room at my inlaws’, Sequoia spent half an hour moaning incessantly about hunger while her appetite adjusted to the 9-hour time difference. Suddenly, she farted quite loudly, then very pointedly stated, “See? I’m so hungry my FARTS are talking to me.”
- When I am in a deep sleep, I feel [tap-tap-tap] on my shoulder.
Sequoia: Mom
Me: What?
Sequoia: I can’t sleep.
And then for the next 3 hours, I can’t sleep. BUT SHE CAN.
