Back To Reality

It's an overcast morning in Singapore and as I write this, at 9:04 am, I'm trying to convince my eyelids to stay up and my brain to function through a fog of jet lag and sleep deprivation. The boys and I flew back from New Zealand yesterday, after a short week-long visit to see my grandmother (hi Nana!) before we head back to the Netherlands shortly.The first day back is always a strange day filled with feelings of displacement; it's hard to fully focus on life hear when half of your brain (and all of your internal body clock) is still focused over there.

People are often very sympathetic when they hear the boys and I are off to fly somewhere without their Dad - visions of nightmarish global treks with two screaming kids wrecking havoc on a plane filled with cursing vengeful passengers simmer just below the surface. But actually it's not that bad. I've flown 'solo' with them quite a few times; Niels first trip abroad was an oestrogen-charged trip to New York with three girlfriends when he was just five months old. Think Sex In The City with more boobs (that was me breastfeeding) and no sex. It was a great trip which Niels sadly remembers nothing of. One of my favourite memories is all five of us falling asleep on the grass in Central Park, thoroughly worn out by fun and one little baby.

Admittedly yesterdays trip had its trials. There's the old chestnut of who gets to sit by the window, how to stop a kid kicking the chair in front when their legs don't reach the foot rest so naturally just swing back and forwards, and the endless, constant, never ending retrieval of toys dropped on the floor into that dark fetid place between the life jackets which smells of feet and impending doom. Somehow growling "get it yourself" doesn't sound threatening over the roar of a 747's jet engines.

As for the kids meals, don't even get me started! Lunch turned up with a large roll of wine gum sweets, a chocolate pudding, and a bar of chocolate. Dinner was accompanied by a mini Mars bar and a Twix bar, plus the obligatory pudding. Hello, doesn't anyone planning airline meals know the effect of filling kids up with sugar then asking them to sit still for an 11 hour flight?? It's a wonder they didn't burst out of the plane like Coca Cola from a shaken can by the time we landed. At least it wasn't as bad as the last time we flew to Holland on KLM, one of the worst airlines we fly on; the kids meal was a full size Mars bar, a limp sandwich, and hot soup!!

We finally landed last night and the kids bounced up to the Dad full of enthusiasm and sugar, then bounced to the car and finally settled down enough at about 8 pm to go to bed, the equivalent of midnight New Zealand time. I had long before given up the ghost and could do no more than offer a quick kiss and unintelligible grunts as I unpacked my suitcase (which had miraculously gone from 15 kg when we left to about 25 when we returned). I made it to 10:30 before chucking in the towel, giving the bunnies a last smooch then heading off for bed.

To bed, but alas, not to sleep. First Carl needed to go to the toilet, an activity requiring an audience of at least 1. Then the bedroom door burst open and in stumbled Niels, covered head to toe in what turned out to be vomit. Holger dealt with him in the shower (coward!) while I went to change his sheets and discovered the entire room had been covered in dark purple stinky puke. His sheets. The mattress. The pillow. The floor. His beautiful pirate rug. The bottoms of my feet.The bathroom floor. The bathroom door. The door frame. The bathroom wall. In fact everywhere except in the toilet.

It took us a good half hour of intense wiping and mopping to clean it all up, while he sat pale and exhausted on a stool next to the loo, occasionally retching into it. Finally it all seemed to be over. We packed him back into a freshly made bed, hoped the air con would scrub the smell of puke out of the air by morning and headed back to bed.

At 4 am both boys were wide awake and wanting to play (of course!). At 5 am hubby gave up and went to sleep on the couch so that when the boys came into our room every quarter hour, at least they wouldn't disturb him. At 7.30 he left for work and here I am, tired, jet lagged, with hands that still smell vaguely of puke. Just got a text from my cleaner saying she can't come today sorry, hope it's not inconvenient!

Oh...and it's my birthday.