Going On A Journey

So the night after was far worse than the morning before...

It didn't start well with the boys howling when I put them to bed - you know that over-tired howl that means they'll be asleep in minutes if they actually just stop crying and close their eyes - but of course they wouldn't and what they needed to get to that stage was some calm words of assurance and someone to sit patiently with them.  But when I've been up for 21 hours straight, still have two others to get to bed, and feel kinda sick myself from tiredness, calm words and patience are two characteristics I'm afraid I'm sadly lacking.  Boy I miss tag-teaming at times like that.

Anyway, both boys (or one woke the other) were up howling again at 2.30am, which meant bringing them in to my large and empty bed hoping they'd quietly go back to sleep.  Which maybe they did, maybe they didn't, who knows, but by 4am I'd had enough of whatever it was they were doing and put them back to their own beds.  Which, no surprise, resulted in more howling.  Again I'm not sure if they went back to sleep, my mind is all a fog, but I know that by 5.30am all the kids were awake, and by 5.45 they'd been instructed to go stick something on the TV.  Not so disimilar to our first ever night in Midland, except thankfully the kids are now old enough to sort themselves out.  By 6.30am whatever they'd chosen to watch was over, so up I got, cracked open a bar of chocolate - this time Marzipan Ritter Sport - and started the day.  Apart from that first time, I don't ever remember a time that we've had sleep issues on our return.  Sure they're up early, but always from what I can remember they managed a good night's sleep...  Of course never before have I not had help ;)

Actually, the biggest disaster of our whole journey was when the friendly Italian steward on Tiger's side of the plane knocked over her orange juice, covering the seat, her lap, and her clothes in sticky juice.  Thankfully I did keep a spare change of clothes in our faithful Trunki (I did debate for a while if they were still needed for the girls) and two folded up blankets managed to keep the wetness from seeping through from the seat again.

In general, though, the journey was pretty easy.  Sure the final three hours of the long-haul flight weren't much fun for Zach, myself, or the people sitting round about us, as he was overly tired and really needed to sleep but shrieked every time I tried to get him to sit still, relax, calm down, rest.  But then every time I said no to him, for battering the chair infront, for trying to climb over the chair infront, for pulling the hair of the person sitting in front etc etc, he did that same overly tired life-is-falling-apart howl, which for all of us it did a wee bit more.  Still, when I apologised to the guy at the end of the flight for the unexpected head massage he received throuhout most of the 9+ hour journey, all he replied was "well we were all young once", which pretty much summed up the folk on the entire journey.  Except for the Grumpy Old Man sitting behind our row in Edinburgh who asked, as we were arranging ourselves, if he could move to the back of the plane.  "I'm on holiday you know" he grumbled, to which the stewardess replied "As are they!"  I think in the end he did move, but every other single person I came across was lovely, and the number of comments I got for being brave, or deserving a medal etc, almost makes me want to do it again.  Cough.

And I would actually, without a thought.  The actual travelling and getting from place to place isn't a problem.  Even sitting on the plane and trying to cut up three kids dinners, untangle three sets of headphones, listen to three comments and adjust three sets of seats, pillows, blankets, toys, all at the same time, while stopping a 17 month old crawl around the plane or climb over the seats, isn't a problem.  It's the stopping that sets the kids off: the hour it takes for us to check in, the (non-existant this time) wait at immigration, the delay there always is flying AA from Dallas to Midland (where yesterday, when their body clocks were telling them it was midnight and they'd only had two hours sleep from 5.30am, they decided to have crawling animal races, and a giggling wrestling match, and a how-far-can-you-kick-your-siblings-Croc-off-your-foot competition, which was both amusing and infuriating).  I mean there's only so many times you can ask your kids to sit still before they go on or after they've come off a trans-atlantic flight.

I tell you one depressing moment in the journey though: there I am sitting on the long-haul flight, my baby has been asleep for the last two hours which means I've actually managed to eat my lunch, the two other kids next to me have finished their lunch and a movie and are about to settle down for a short sleep, my other kid across the aisle is watching a second movie but has said she'll sleep after that, and being responsible I know she will, and so I sit there kinda smug thinking "This is actually all right...  Maybe I'll start a movie, or look out my book..."  Then I glance up at the screen in front of me and what does it say?  Only 4 flamin' hours have passed and I have another five and a half still to go.  And the baby then wakes up wanting his lunch, and the boy won't go to sleep because "I'm not tiiiiiireeed" and... and... and...