Jet Lag

At 10:30 last night, I was sleeping soundly, having been exhausted when I turned out my light at 10:00 since the fatigue of trans-Atlantic travel still hadn't worn off. The previous night, our first at home, all three children had woken several times, generally not coinciding with each other. Once awake, I had a hard time going back to sleep and ended up reading for an hour and a half in the wee hours of the morning. I was hoping the second night would be a sleep-through night.

"Mommy! Mommy? Mommy! Mom-ME!!" I woke slowly, gradually aware that Lilah was crying in the next room, sobbing in fact, yelling for her mother in a voice that was going from pathetic to angry and demanding. I lay awake, cozy under the covers, for a moment. Nope, the wailing was definitely not subsiding. So I padded through the cold house to Lilah's crib, laid my hand on her back, and said, "It's nighttime, Lilah. Time for sleeping. We're all snuggled up in our beds, just like you. Mommy is sleeping too." She lay back down and I covered her up and went to bed. Sleep came harder, but I did go back to sleep before the next alarm.

"I have a poopy diaper. Julie, I have a poopy diaper. Julie, I have a poopy diaper! Ju-LIE!" (angry now, every word a reprimand to the response-less world) "I have a poopy diaPER!!" In a lighter sleep, I woke up at the first call this time, but I guess I hoped the problem would resolve itself, because I still didn't hop right out of bed. Of course the diaper needed to be changed, so I did get out of bed, opened her door to let her know she could stop sobbing and yelling, and hunted for wipes and a diaper in the dark, quiet house. Back in Lilah's room, I turned on the light and popped her out of the  crib and down on the rug. I opened her diaper and there was nothing to see. "Lilah, there is no poopy diaper. You should not have said that; it was a lie, and it was naughty." I sympathized with her confused body clock, but there was nothing about this experience I wanted to encourage, so I scooped her back in the crib, told her to go to sleep, and left.

Back in bed, wide awake. A few minutes after 11:00. I didn't want to read and prolong the adjustment to the Berlin time zone, so I lay still, eyes closed, praying, thinking, looking for sleep. Whimpers came from the next room, but no more outbursts. For a while. "Mommy, I want the door closed a little bit." (Which means open a crack.) Repeated, growing fiercer. How to stop the wailing and keep it from happening again? While I pondered this, Heather got up and went to Lilah. A little conversation, including a statement from Lilah that was probably more true than all of her other excuses: "Mommy, I'm not tired!" Quiet again, aside from whimpers. I think I may have gone back to sleep, but around midnight Lilah thought of something else. It took me a few minutes to decipher it through the sobs. "I have a runny nose, Mommy. Mommy, I have a runny nose." This was not hard for me to believe, but my stock of sympathy was at an alarming low. Surprisingly, the crying stopped after only a few repetitions. Then I heard little footsteps in the hall. Voices, in Heather's room, one so quiet I couldn't make out the words, the other caught between sobs. Lilah must have escaped the crib. Big footsteps back to Lilah's room, then all was quiet.

Did I go back to sleep? I think so. Around 1:00, the next call came. Out of new excuses, Lilah used a repeat: "Mommy, I have a poopy diaper." Louder, adding in sobs and changing from a notification to a demand. I swung my legs out of bed. If this was another false alarm, I was not going to be happy. (Then again, if it was a justified alarm, I wasn't going to be that happy, either.) I went and checked the diaper, found it to be as Lilah had stated, and went on the hunt in Claire's room for another diaper. Lilah perked right up as I worked in her bright bedroom. "Julie, does Cinderella never sleep in her own house?" I did not want this to be a pleasant experience for Lilah, so I answered briskly, "I don't know." As I put her back in the crib, she said, "When will it be morning?" I told her it wouldn't be for a while, and turned off the light. "Goodnight," I said, hoping I wouldn't be saying it again in another twenty-five minutes.

The next disturbance was Claire, but she went to Heather's room and was sent back to her room with minimal crying. I was sound asleep and woke only briefly for her show. Cole apparently wailed for a while, but I never heard it. I woke around 7:00 this morning, happy to see a cold, sunny fall morning, but mostly happy to have been asleep!