jet lag to the 5th power

Wondering what all this looks like?  Here goes...

Right now the girls are in one bedroom, the bigger boys in another (with an empty crib for Luke when things settle down) and Luke in a pack n play in a separate bedroom.  Trying to spread everyone out as much as possible for maximum sleep.   

First night everyone is asleep by 2am.  Luke is up from 3 to 5 and then sleeps again on the couch from 5am to 1pm.  Everyone else sleeps solid from 2am to 1pm Tuesday afternoon.  [Except John Paul who wakes up crying and moves in to my bed midway through the long winter's nap.] 

11 hours is not shabby and they would have slept longer too - but it's pure exhaustion kicking in, and the 11 hours come at the wrong time of day.  [Unfortunately, I only sleep for bits and pieces of the time they are asleep.]


Night #2 is our first step in the battle.  Here's how it went down. [all times my best guess, some details filled in with help from Mom and Dad]

8:30pm bedtime for Luke.  He's only been awake 7 hours but he's rubbing his eyes and what else do you do?

9pm  John Paul in bed.

9:30 Isaac to bed - John Paul already snoozing hard and Isaac is asleep within minutes

10pm Girls in bed, Julianna tells me that she is tired.  I am hopeful :) 

10:30 Luke crying.  I settle him down quickly and he's asleep again.

11:45 John Paul fussing.  I move him to my bed and he's back to sleep quickly.  I decide it's time to go to bed myself and turn off the light by midnight.

12:20 Luke crying again.  I rock him back to sleep.

1:15 Luke again. I knock on my parents door and beg for help.  Dad takes Luke downstairs.

1:30 Lydia arrives in the living room, Luke is delighted to see her and the two of them are wide awake with Dad (who is less wide awake, obviously!).

2:15 Isaac shows up at my bed, says he "can't sleep"... I tuck him in on the other side of me and try to sleep surrounded by little boy.  No dice.  John Paul wakes with the commotion and is thrilled to see Isaac.  Neither of them fall back asleep. 

2:30 I take the boys downstairs where we find Dad and Lydia and Luke.  Dad heads to bed and I pull out snacks. 

2:45 Julianna appears bleary-eyed and asks for the time. I tell her it's almost 3am and she heads back to bed.  I start reading books on the couch.

3:00 Julianna again, she "can't fall back asleep".  She joins the couch party.  I'm struggling.  Remember I'm coming off a long trip where my total sleep was about 3 hours, my longest continuous stretch was probably 45 minutes.  At 3am I'm not putting my best foot forward.  I'm plowing through chapter 2 of Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle when I decide it's "bedtime, part two, sleepy or NOT"

3:30 Luke in bed, but he's unsettled and I'm in and out to rock him a few times .....

3:45 John Paul and Isaac in bed but wide awake. 

4 Lydia in bed (she's been up almost 3 hours) and Julianna reading books with a small light.  I tell Lydia she can "try very hard" to fall asleep and read with Julianna if she is not successful.

4:15 check on boys, still wide awake but mostly quiet. 

4:30 final visit to Luke's room, hopeful he is down for the count, Isaac and JP still awake.  Isaac asks "how many more minutes til it's time to get up" and I answer "SIX hours".  Momma is officially done. 

4:35 I'm headed for bed.... as far as I know only Luke is asleep :)

5:00 Isaac at my side whispering, "Has it been six hours yet?"  He tells me that John Paul is asleep so I send Isaac to my mom (she's an early riser anyways) and sleep rock solid til 9:30. 

I wake feeling good (4 and a half uninterrupted hours is my longest sleep stretch since Sunday night, China time) and decide it's time to wake the troops and introduce them to the idea of sleeping AT NIGHT and playing DURING THE DAY, Eastern Standard Time night and day, that is! 

At 9:30 I find John Paul and Luke still sleeping.... Mom reports that Isaac Lydia and Julianna fell asleep at 6am (Isaac on the floor between their beds) and she talks me in to letting everyone sleep a bit longer. 

At 11 I start the wake up process. The big three are not impressed with my efforts; I finally resort to bribing - each of them gets a dollar to spend on the dollar aisle at Target if they are out of the bed within two minutes.  The bribe works and they trudge to the kitchen for breakfast where they are joined by John Paul (crying, begging to "go night night") and Luke (bleary-eyed and unwilling to leave my arms).

So, we've got a few more days til the worst is behind us :)

In the meantime, we are having a blast!  Seriously.  Sleep is a work in progress but we are good at having fun no matter what!

Some pics from the last three days....

Victory at the D.C. airport.... our travel crew :)  Thankful to add these two wonderful girls - Addie and Lindsey - to our list of friends.  

At the airport... John Paul so excited to be with his Granddaddy.  Funny that every time we talked about meeting at the airport I would say "Granddaddy will be there" and John Paul always insisted Grandmama would be there too.  Turns out, he knew best.  She WAS there :) 

[And we somehow missed a big group picture, ugh!]

Last flight - a short one but this is typically where we see a lot of tears.  Not another airplane :(  Julianna and Lydia were both struggling to maintain composure as we boarded.  No worries, they were asleep within minutes..... I had to shake Lydia awake at the gate and she could barely make it off the plane she was still so wobbly :) 

Sound asleep at midday on the living room couch.  Hello jet lag :) 

Raking leaves on the first day... good for the body, good for the soul.

Working Hard (Lydia) and Hardly Working (Luke)

Oh these boys were LOVING it! 

Today we hit Target for a few supplies and the chance to spend their hard-earned Target dollar on the dollar aisle. 

Tomorrow we're headed for the library.  I'm not sure who is the most excited .... all my kids have heard enough raving about libraries to be ready for this trip :)