Re-Entry

This re-entry into our "real life" sucks.  The time change in India is 13 1/2 hours, so basically our days and nights are reversed..  We got home around 2:30 PM on Monday.  This was after leaving Agra at 11 AM on Sunday (11 PM Saturday night, Pacific Time) and driving 5 hours to New Delhi.  In Delhi, we visited two family member's houses, where, despite our protests,  they stuffed us full of food (I'll save a description of Indian Hospitality for a separate entry).  Just what you want before a long flight, right?  We went flying out of the second house late (again, thanks to Indian Hospitality) to the airport and arrived there around 8:30 PM.   Our flight was scheduled for 11:45 PM.  We finally got checked in and through security around 10 PM.  At this point, we had to say goodbye to Ritu who was flying to the Philippines.  Cue two tired, heartbroken crying children.  Thankfully, my in-laws, Sarah and Becky were all on the flight to Newark with us.  Juliana fell asleep on my lap long before we boarded and when they made the pre-boarding announcement, I picked her up and shoved my way through a large throng of passengers surrounding the gate.  It may have been my proudest moment of the whole trip..  The rest of our group trailed behind me with our carry-on luggage.

The flight was 16 hours long and we arrived in Newark at about 4:30 AM Eastern Time.  My in-laws helped me gather my luggage and get through customs.  I don't know how I could've done it without them.  After that, we went our separate ways and the kids and I settled in for a 5 hour layover.  Our flignt left on time at 10 AM and we arrived at 1 PM Pacific Time after a 6 hour flight.  Both kids fell asleep on that flight, so I had to wake them up when we landed.  Not good.  David sleeps like the dead and Juliana woke up with a clogged ear which lead to a long crying jag. 

When we got back to the house, my mom was blessedly here and she'd filled my fridge with groceries and home-cooked food.  At 4:00, Juliana started asking to go to bed, but I made them stay up as long as I could, which was 5:30.  I was dead asleep myself by 7 PM.  I woke up at 3:30 AM and saw that David was already awake.  He was hungry, so we went downstairs to eat.  Juliana woke around 4:15. <yawn>

David weighed himself that morning and I found that he'd lost 5 pounds on the trip.  That boy does not have 5 pounds to lose. While we were traveling, he was eating an OK breakfast at the hotel, then spent the rest of each day on the Survivor India diet: bowls of plain rice.  I had brought plenty of snacks with me, and those helped to sustain him.  I''m planning to start an I.V. of alfredo sauce to get him back to fighting weight.

David did go to school yesterday and lasted all day, even though when I checked on him at lunchtime, his eyes weren't quite focusing in the same direction.  I managed to keep everyone awake until 6:00 last night, despite Juliana asking to go to bed from 4:30 on.  I crashed at 7:30 but Juliana woke me up just before midnight.  She and I were awake for hours.  She finally went back to sleep at 2:30 and I laid there for awhile in a no-sleep panic.  I can deal with a lot of things, but sleep-deprivation is not one of them.  It's a main reason why I thank God each and every day that I am done with babies.  Not sleeping leaves me headachy, teary-eyed, and with that weird fizzy feeling at the top of my stomach.  Not to mention that filter of utter doom and despair through which I see my entire life.  Eventually I fell back asleep and woke up around 7 AM.  I feel about 60% human today, which I guess is a step in the right direction.