I talk a lot about how I’m constantly amazed by the flexibility, willingness and resilience my kids show, especially when it comes to travel.  (As I mentioned yesterday, jet lag is a currently notable exception.)  And, it’s true — my kids amaze me with how well they handle long train trips or plane rides, sleeping in new locations, trying new foods and activities, deviations from their schedule and the general unpredictability that comes with travel.  In a lot of ways, they handle it better than I do.

But that’s the trip itself.  The flip side to that flexibility shows itself when we come home and try to get BACK into our normal routine.  Then, all hell breaks loose.  Ok, that may be a SLIGHT exaggeration, but I have consistently found that the week immediately following a trip is crazy around here.  When we travel, things are different.  We’re on vacation, so schedules change, exceptions are made to the rules, special circumstances abound.  When we get home, and we try to tighten things up again, we meet with major resistance.  (It also happens the week after we host guests in our home — anything that changes the routine and causes exceptions to the status quo causes a similar upheaval.)

When we were away last week, we did lots of things that are outside the norm for us.  We weren’t strict about enforcing the “eat a reasonable portion of your meal or you don’t get dessert” rule.  We watched a lot of tv.  Benjamin slept in Grandma’s room, with a night light.  We held Liam a lot to help him sleep, and we napped, most days, all curled up together in bed (me, Benjamin and Liam, that is — Dan was at work).  Benjamin was allowed chocolate milk at bedtime.  Several times, we skipped baths.  We didn’t limit stories to 4.  Benjamin didn’t go to school (obviously — that would have been a rough commute).

All that stuff is great — we were on vacation mode, and vacations are supposed to be special.  (How much fun would it be to go on vacation and do everythign just exactly like you do it at home?)  Explaining that to a 1 year old and a 3 year old is easy, but weathering the fallout is not.  So this week, we have major cranky pants-itis in our house.  Every single thing we readjust causes turmoil.  The kids are throwing fits and having temper tantrums right and left.  (And, the aforementioned jet lag is not helping.)

It’s ok.  I realize that it’s normal, and, even more, I understand that these lessons are important.  Vacations are fun, and it’s great to slack off on the routine and enjoy.  But, when you come back, things go back to normal.  It wouldn’t be as special if it was like that all the time (and mommy would lose her mind).  But this transition time is sure rough.  I’m hoping it gets better each time we “practice” it.

For the monumental amount of travelling we’ve done with the kids over the years, we’ve blissfully avoided most of the pain of jet lag.

When we moved here, I guess we experienced it, but those first few weeks, we really didn’t have anywhere to be at any particular time, and we all kind of adjusted together (not to mention, Liam was about 6 months old and still getting up once a night to eat, so we were accustomed to being up a lot at just about any hour).  When we flew to the US a week ago, we arrived on Saturday afternoon and stayed up through the evening.  The kids fell asleep easily and woke up a little early the next morning, but, by Monday, we were all pretty much on track.

Not so on the return trip.  This is definitely the worst we’ve had it so far.  On our transatlantic red-eye, the boys each got a few (maybe 4?) hours of sleep, but Dan and I didn’t get any.  Our plan was to have our Sunday be as normal as possible and get ourselves back on track.  We had a normal (if slightly long) nap time on Sunday, but we figured we’d all be tired enough and ready to sleep Sunday night, putting us back on schedule.

For some reason, though, it isn’t working.  Although we’re putting the boys down around their normal bedtime of 9:00, they’re both wakeful for HOURS afterwards . . . until about 3:00 in the morning.  So, they aren’t really falling fast asleep until their US east coast bedtime.  Then, they’re sleeping late in the morning (until about 10:00 on Monday, and 9:00 this morning).  Which would all be fine, except . . . that our plan worked pretty well for Dan & I — meaning, we’re back on Austrian time, while the kids are definitely not.

Ouch.

So, basically, we’re tired and want to go to bed at a normal hour (around 11:00 – 12:00) after putting the kids down a couple of hours earlier.  And then we spend the next 4 hours taking turns getting up with both boys until we finally get them settled around 3:00, only to get up ourselves between 6:00 and 7:00.  I don’t want to wake the boys in the morning after such a short night, because I suspect it would mean a disastrous day.  Benjamin even missed school this morning because he didn’t get up until we were already supposed to be there.

It’s only been a few days, but I am so ready for this to be over.

Benjamin was more of a talker, at this age, than Liam is.  We’re constantly being surprised by the differences in our kids as they grow and learn.  Benjamin definitely was an early adopter in terms of language, while Liam has developed all kinds of physical skills (especially small, detail oriented ones) that Benjamin didn’t have until much later.  Kids are just different, and what we came to see as “typical” in Benjamin is not Liam’s own “typical”.

Liam does talk — he says a bunch of words, but almost never a sentence other than “Car, go!” or “Ready, go!”.  (Although, he said “Mama” with correct discernment much earlier, which was heartwarming for me.)  As with Benjamin, I understand more of what he says than anyone else does, but there’s still a lot of what he says that I don’t get yet.  He’s got a definite head start on one thing, though — he recently started asking us, “Why?”

He asks it now in response to almost everything we tell him.  “Don’t feed Bailey your dinner.”  “Why?”  “Time to rinse off!”  “Why?”  “You can’t climb on the table.”  “Why?”

Because he doesn’t talk as much as Benjamin did — Benjamin spoke early, often and in great detail — I think everyone tends to underestimate how much Liam understands.  (I know sometimes I do.)  But really, I know better.  It’s not that he doesn’t understand, it’s just that he isn’t ready to talk a lot yet.  But he does understand.  And he wants to know more.  I’m amazed that of the 30 or so words he’s using so far,  he’s chosen “why” to be one of them.  And it’s so wonderful to watch him listen for the answer.

My thoughts are jumbled, scattered and disconnected — the inevitable result of being awake for almost 36 hours, a 6 hour time change and a 9 hour flight with 2 kids (and a partridge in a pear tree — I don’t even know if all that math is right, but it’s something like that).

The boys slept on the plane.  They didn’t sleep a lot, or particularly soundly (there were probably a dozen little kids on our flight, and at least one of them was crying at almost every moment) but in exchange for their sleep, we didn’t.  I am really tired.

But, I’m glad to be home.  I think.  I’m not really sure, at this moment, where home is.  Because I’m glad to be home, but simultaneously missing being home.  And it isn’t just a semantic problem — my brain actually counts each place as “home” right now.  I feel like I have two homes at the moment, and it isn’t at all an unpleasant feeling.  It isn’t at all a feeling of not belonging in either place, or of “otherness” in both places (which I was a little worried about) but rather a feeling of comfortableness and being welcomed home in two entirely different places.  It’s a strange feeling.  I’m leaving home, I’m coming home.

In the row in front of us on the plane was a young mom travelling with her two little kids (a boy and a girl, maybe about 5 and 8).  We talked a bit on the flight, and in the various lines we had to wait in.  They helped us recover thrown toy cars on the flight and kindly ignored Benjamin pushing on the back of the seat in front of him (although, the way her son slept — across 3 seats and completely unaware of what was gong on — I’m not sure he was so much ignoring it as truly not noticing it).  They, too, have two homes.  They were travelling from South Carolina, where they live now, to Jordan, where they’re originally from (which meant they had 3 hours of travel before our flight and 5 more hours after we left them — yikes).  It’s the same for them — leaving home and coming home at the same time — and she also talked about how pleasant but strange the feeling is.

What a wonderful sensation to be able to experience.  We feel so loved at home in the US, with our family and our friends, and all the familiarity.  But we also feel loved here in Austria, and it has come to be home to us.  We have arrived here at home, in Austria, and we’ve left so many loved ones back home in the US.  We are so lucky, and we will see them all again soon.

We’re on our way back to Vienna now, somewhere over the Atlantic (in the vicinity of Newfoundland, according to the map display on channel 63). I miss everyone at home already. I was just getting in to a rhythm there — just becoming pleasantly accustomed to visiting with my family and catching up with friends. I’m not ready to go back, and it’s only our upcoming return trip home that keeps me from being even sadder about our departure.

But although I wish I was still at home, I can’t get back to Vienna fast enough. My kids should be nominated for some kind of award for how well they weather whatever journey we ask them to undertake, but 9+ hours on a plane is a long trip for ANYONE, myself included. Liam is sleeping, Dan is resting, and Benjamin is sitting beside me, vowing not to sleep at all. For now, we are uncomfortably cramped (really, Guy Behind Me, is it required that you press your knees into the seat?), surprisingly warm, and holding our noses (forget security screening, they should screen people for body odor before allowing them to board).

Whatever happens with our sleep and our travels, it’s only 9 hours out of our lives, and tomorrow will come with opportunities for rest. It’s going to be a long night, though, and it’s less fun because we’re flying AWAY from where I’d like to be headed.

This trip to the States has been great. I’ve loved seeing my family — it’s been every bit as wonderful to see my kids interacting with them as I thought it would be. It’s been nice just to be here at home, without anything in particular to do or anywhere to be. I even got to be here for my brother’s 35th birthday today, and we were able to have dinner and cake and ice cream with him to celebrate.

And, I’ve also been able to see some friends that I haven’t seen in much too long. I’m very fortunate to have an amazing collection of interesting, warm, kind, fun people as friends — and some of them I have known for a VERY long time. Today, I was able to get together with my oldest friend — in duration, not in age — we’ve known each other, she reminded me today, for nearly 30 years.

We went to see her, her husband and her son (who is almost 3) today at their home . . . which is about 2 minutes drive from my mom’s house . . . which is also the house she grew up in . . . which means it is also the house she and I played in as kids. I remember camp out sleep overs in her yard, choreographing a rather unfortunate “ballet” involving several stuffed unicorns in her living room and once attempting to drop my sister off in her stead (which, sadly, almost worked).

We had a great time. It was so nice to catch up, and hang out, and just spend time together. And it was fun to watch our boys do the same (and they even played well together and shared their toys).

I’ve loved being home, spending time with my family and friends that I’ve missed so much. This trip has been much too short, and I’m already looking forward to coming home again.

For longer than I’ve been a mom, I’ve been an apartment dweller. We had a condo in Virginia, and now, in Vienna, we live in a beautiful attic apartment. I used to dream of having a house with a big yard . . . maybe even enough space to keep the horses at home. But over the years, I’ve really become a fan of apartment living. Frankly, I spend all the time I care to cleaning and maintaining the interior of my home — if I had to worry about the outside, too, it would either require more energy to keep up, or more energy to devote to stressing about NOT keeping it up.

As such, I’ve never had it particularly easy in terms of taking my kids outside. It’s always been somewhat of an ordeal. “Going outside to play” has always meant socks and shoes, typically the stroller, and almost always a walk to the park or playground. Our old apartment had a little bit of space out front where we could color with chalk (a purpose fulfilled by our terrace in our current place) but if we wanted to play ball or run around in the grass, it was always a “big deal” to get ready to go.

I’ve always made a point to do it anyway. I like getting outside with my kids, and I know they enjoy it (and even when they don’t, I know it’s good for them) but I still haven’t done it as often as I would have if it were easy and in close proximity to my front door. (And I’ve always had some regret about the socks and shoes thing — I think there is a lot to be experienced by simply stepping, barefoot, through your front door and entering the world.)

Here, visiting my mom, we’re able to just walk through the front door and be outside. I took the kids out to play ball this afternoon, and it took me about 2 minutes to get them ready to go (and then, only because I had to search out hats for the sun). We didn’t take a stroller or a diaper bag. We played outside for only a few minutes, because it was hot, and almost nap time, but it was so easy to get out there that it didn’t feel like a waste to only be outside for a bit. When some friends and family came over this evening, we went out again — and again, it took only moments to prepare.

We still haven’t tried going barefoot (Liam is too little, and Benjamin is too afraid . . . of ants . . . to try it) but we will. So far, just having the outdoors so accessible is lovely. It’s something I miss, living in an apartment, and living in the city. I’m glad my boys are getting a chance ot just “go outside” so easily.

I had such a great day. My boys and I had a quiet morning before heading out to Poolesville with my mom. We met my dad for a nice lunch, and were joined by two of my sisters and my step-mother before going out to see my horses, and some great friends, for the first time in over a year. Despite the rain which hit us with a downpour as soon as we left for the barn, it was wonderful to pat my sweet horses again. I even got a nicker of recognition from both Cricket and Ellie (which was heartwarming and just plain awesome). I was so happy to see them again, and to see, with my own eyes, how well they are doing while I’m away. We all got a bit soggy while out visiting with the horses, but it was fun to see Benjamin tentatively approach the horses for a visit, and to see Liam march right up and pat their noses.

After communing with the equines, we all went back to my dad’s for a fun evening, complete with a great dinner. The boys got to run around and play while I got to visit with a lot of my family.

It was really a treat — exactly the kind of day I was looking forward to when we planned our visit home. (And all of my parents’ collective ability and willingness to happily spend the day together is something I will never cease to be grateful for and amazed by.) But . . . we had a long day, and Poolesville is an hour away from my mom’s, and by the time we got home, I was exhausted and grumpy. So, I was tired, and grumpy, and my kids were tired, too. But, I’d had a wonderful day, and my boys were such good sports about being toted from one side of the county to the other. With 90% of my brain (or more) I was filled with happiness and gratitude for the amazing day I just got to spend with my family . . . but then there was the part of me that was grumpy and irritable.

It sucks. I know it does. I know there’s no excuse, nor really even any good reason, for me to be in a bad mood at that moment. I know that whatever part of me that is grateful and happy is pretty much overshadowed, to everyone around me, by the part of me that ends up stressed out and overtired. I should focus on the good day we’ve had, assess the current situation, make the decision to skip anything non-essential, and get my boys into bed with a smile on my face. I *know* that’s what I should do, but today, I couldn’t quite manage it (my mom helped, which was great, but I still couldn’t quite do it). It’s like I know what I should do, but I just can’t manage to hit the override switch and actually do it. So I end the great day on a slightly sour note, and I hate it.

I had a great day. I really, truly did, and I wouldn’t have changed it if I had it to do over again. But I ended the day tired, stressed and irritable, and I feel like I really let my family — my kids in particular — down by not keeping myself in a good frame of mind.

Well, we made it. We’re here, safe and sound.

My kids are amazing. They did over 9 hours on a plane today on their very best behavior — and even hours after we arrived, at dinner, Benjamin remembered his “please”s and “thank you”s. We haven’t had a single meltdown yet. Liam slept for over 5 hours of the flight.

I am so, incredibly tired. My alarm clock went off 21 hours ago, after only a few hours of sleep, and when it did, I was in Austria.

I am so thrilled, grateful and happy to be home. It is so wonderful to see my family, to enjoy their company, and to watch my boys play with some of the most important people in their lives.

Life is good. I am tired. More tomorrow.

Whenever you travel, there are certain things that can’t be done until the last minute.  When you travel with kids, this is magnified by an order of magnitude for each person.  At least.

There are toothbrushes, hairbrushes and combs, still to be used; favorite blankets and toys that can’t be snuck away until the very last moment; shoes that are still being worn; electronics that are still being played with — they’re all still on my list.  And then, since I’m likely to completely space out on important details when I’m stressed about getting out the door, I have a long list of things to do (such as take out the trash and close the windows) and things to remember (like the fact that the orange stroller is the one we’re bringing with us and how many suitcases we have to bring along — my mom once had to debate with Dan & I about the fact that we had one fewer suitcase than we were saying we should have with us . . . and it took her the better part of 10 minutes to convince us she was right).

I’m trying to keep things calm and normal around the house prior to our departure.  I know the kids will do best if things aren’t hectic or stressed and if Mommy isn’t irritable or freaking out.  But it’s hard to keep myself in a relaxed mode when I’m surrounded by unfinished to do lists and the clock is ticking down.

We are, now, down to only those last-minute things.  That which can be packed, is packed (except for all of Dan’s stuff, which is another immense frustration entirely).  That which can be done, is done.  Our attempts at a normal, on-time evening are completely out the window since it’s now 9:30 and the kids aren’t in the bath yet (bedtime is theoretically 9:00, although we almost never make it).  All that’s left, really, is to try to keep myself in a decent frame of mind while I finish up the loose ends.  It helps me to remember that this time tomorrow, we’ll be home!