The jet lag curse

Our flight landed in San Francisco at 6 p.m.

"Is it morning time?" asked my daughter, who had slept on the plane for nine hours.

"It's morning in Bali but nighttime in San Francisco."

She was confused.

Night No. 1

By the time we got home it was 8 p.m. We opened mail, listened to voicemail messages, unpacked souvenirs, and even went to the grocery store. I kept the kids up until 10 p.m. because on the first night of trying to adjust to a new time zone, you're supposed to stay up as late as possible so you don't wake up at 3 a.m.

And then Paris yawned and I put the kids to bed. They were tired and quickly fell asleep--until 4 a.m.

Paris came into the bedroom and woke me.

"I'm hungry! Wake up! I'm hungry! Turn the light on! Get out of bed Mommy!"

I felt as if I was being woke from the dead. I had taken sleeping pills to help me adjust to the time so I practically had to pry open my eyelids to see the bright and smiley look on my daughter's face.

I dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen. Paris was wired. She pulled all the cereal out and put a little of each kind into a bowl. Cereal was spilled out all over the place and I could hardly see straight. But after a few cups of black tea, I perked up.

We finished unpacking, wrote our thank-you notes for Christmas, drew tons of pictures. And then at 8 a.m., Dante and Anthony woke up. They had already adjusted to San Francisco time while Paris and I were still back in Bali.

Night No. 2

The next day, we sent the kids to school. Both my husband and I had to work so we had no choice. (In hindsight, I would have planned the trip so we returned on a Friday and took the weekend to adjust.) But Paris and Dante both survived school and we picked them up in the evening and put them to bed at 8 p.m. They quickly conked out because they were exhausted from school. I was also feeling tired and ready for bed--after all I had been up since 3 a.m.--but I had to work. And once I sat down on the computer, I began to wake up. In fact, I was feeling energized because it was the middle of the day in Bali.

When I finally stood up from my desk at 1 a.m., my legs were so wobbly that I nearly fell to the ground. I had been up for 21 hours and I had probably gotten six or eight hours total the two nights before. I was beyond exhaustion. I collapsed into bed and figured that I'd fall right asleep. Wrong. I had pushed myself too far. My mind was racing. I lay there staring up at the ceiling. 22 hours. Sleeping pills. Still not tired. 23 hours. 24 hours. Read magazine article. 25 hours. I finally fell asleep at 5 a.m.

6 a.m.—my daughter wakes up. Like her dad and brother, she was already back on track.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

I was supposed to take my daughter to school that morning and then my son and his friend to swim class. I looked over at my husband, who had slept restfully for 10 hours, and said, "I'm going to die if I don't get sleep!"

A week later, I finally adjusted.