Jet-lagged Baby

We've arrived in Germany!

Now we're in Berlin. Josh is taking a week long brewing course, while Danny and I explore the city with my parents. I'm so so so excited. Of course there's the obvious. I'm excited to see a new country and I'm excited to see my family. But I am SO STINKING HAPPY to be out of China. Like, can I say it a hundred more times? I'm loving the fresh air and personal space here. It's totally awesome and under-appreciated.

I was nervous about how the flight would go. We were so fortunate to have zero hiccups along the way. The worst of it was Danny crying for maybe 10 minutes out of the 11+ hour flight. No poop explosions, no lost baggage, no missed connecting flights. We showed up to the apartment we had rented, and within a few minutes, there my parents were coming down the street to greet us.

Yesterday was our first full day here. It's great to not have any structured plans, because anyone with kids knows that the baby calls the shots. He was pleasant. Woke up around 4:30 am, took a nap at 7, was happy and playful all day until 3:30pm. I decided it was a good time for a nap, but in his Shanghai mind, it was bedtime. You can imagine my mistake trying to wake him back up at 5. Lesson. Learned. He cried, he whined, he rubbed his eyes, he wailed. I had created a monster!

All the while, we had adults trying to come up with the solution to pacify him. Maybe he should listen to soft music, maybe he should be nursed, maybe he should go for a walk, maybe he would like a toy.

Josh and I wanted to stick to our plan of trying to keep him up a bit longer so he could start to switch time zones. But, we weren't too pumped to listen to a crying baby for who knows how long. I was dealing with a stomachache as well, which made everything seem worse.

In the end, I caved. Let him nurse for as long as he wants, and if he falls asleep, let him sleep until he wakes up again. And he was up again at 4 am, already napping by 7. Who knows what the day holds. So many people are intimidated by traveling with a baby. It's not a big deal. It's hard and it's exhausting. Things will go wrong. But it's okay.

A jet-lagged baby is okay. Whoever said you get to sleep when you have a baby anyway? You might as be somewhere cool while you miss out on sleep.