I suppose we were lucky that on our way to England, we didn’t experience much in the way of jet lag. We stayed up late, we slept late. We were a little tired, sure, but it was mostly fine. Coming home, though? Totally different story. The jet lag is kicking all of our butts.
In the week since we’ve been home, Catie has been unable to sleep more than two or three hours consistently without crying for either me or Dave. Sometimes she needs to use the bathroom (which, OMG she’s waking up to pee, yay! Only I’m not so enthusiastic about it at 3 a.m.), sometimes she’s thirsty, sometimes she’s just upset because she kicked her covers off and she wants us to tuck her back in. And even though I understand that this whole trip threw off her routine and she just needs reassurance to get back to normal, it’s challenging to maintain empathy after the third or fourth time she wakes me up.
Oh, also? She’s been announcing that she’s tired and ready for bed around 8:30, which is fantastic. I’ve been wanting her to go to bed earlier for ages. But then she decides that she’s awake for the day at 5 a.m. Which, no. Sorry, kid. Mommy needs more sleep than that. I’ll gladly take that 10:30 p.m. bedtime back if it means that I get to sleep until 8:00 again.
As if Dave and I weren’t tired enough – and we’re both just now finally starting to feel better after that Sinus Infection of Doom – Catie now appears to be sick too. It started on Saturday, she came down with a fever and a nasty cough. These things always make her asthma flare up, so we’re being very careful to stay on top of her meds to keep her comfortable. The poor thing is on Pulmicort, albuterol, Motrin, and Zyrtec. She takes all of them like a champ, which is great, but I hate that she needs it.
Anyway, this virus thing means even less sleep than before. The past 3 nights, she’s woken up every 45 minutes to an hour. If memory serves, this is actually less sleep than I got when she was a newborn.
She seems a lot better today, so hopefully we’re at the end of this phase of all three of us being sick. Which would be nice, because I’ve had quite enough of it already to last me for all of 2010.
(Photographic evidence of her improvement. Keep it up, kiddo. Please keep it up. Mommy is exhausted and needs you to get healthy quickly.)