Jet Lag, Having Kids, and Finding Nemo

Jet Lag.

With that first overseas move, I lived with Jet Lag for two whole weeks.  No, I did not just do all the stuff you aren't supposed to do.  I immediately forced myself to live on Orient time.  I ate when the clock told me to.  Forcing myself to rise in the morning, I pushed through life according to what Time thought I should be doing.

Unfortunately, I had a toddler to contend with.  She didn't give a rip for what the clock said.  Her little body was hungry when it felt hungry.  Her body slept and woke when it darn well wanted to.  It didn't matter how much manipulation I tried of her sleep schedule.  1am came every morning...like clockwork.  You see, 1am in the Orient was 4pm in the Great White North.  Her body thought that it was waking up from her afternoon nap.

This is how my life was.  My engineer would sleep through the night, grumbling when our Angel woke.  Knowing that he had to head to the office, I would get up with her and close off the hall door.  She was SO very happy to be up.  I, on the other hand...was not.  Stumbling and stubbing toes, I would drag a blanket and pillow to the chair.  Forlornly, I would look at the clock and see 1:15am in bright blue numbers on the clock face.  My life SUCKED!!!

Any of you who have had children or currently do, understand that toddlers get "stuck" on their favorite things.  You will sit and read the same book so many times that you discover that you can recite it in your sleep.  At times, you may even dream about Snuggle Puppies or abcs following out of some stupid coconut tree.  The same toy, the same book....the same movie.  Like just about every other parent of small children back then, I spent a whole lot of time looking for Nemo.

I used to LOVE Finding Nemo.  It was beautifully done with a wonderful story about friendship and perseverance.  However, watching Finding Nemo every morning from 1am to 7am was enough for me to decide that Finding Nemo was the worst thing to happen to parents everywhere.  If I tried to put something else in, my girl became anything but an angel.  It was like she KNEW it was way too early for anyone to be up, so she threatened to wake the dead if Nemo didn't stay right where she felt he belonged....looping continuously on the TV.

If we didn't have neighbors above, below, and on both sides, I would have just let her scream.  With every ounce of my being, I hated giving in when what she really needed was a swift "NO" and her little self in her crib.  But after being an unwitting audience to the amorous noises in the room above ours, I knew that I HAD to keep her quiet at all costs...even if it meant that I had to burn multiple brain cells losing and finding Nemo over and over and over again.

My Angel FINALLY got on the right sleep schedule at about the same time we were assigned a house on base.  Two weeks.  Two very, very LONG weeks.  During the pack out for our move from billeting to our new home, I conveniently "lost" Finding Nemo.  It was almost two years before he was found again...