Here We Go...

Tomorrow is the big day....the day when I spend over 24 hours traveling with a 2-year old and an infant. I must be out of my mind! We're waking up at 3am to catch a 6am flight to Tokyo (8 hours long), then have a 4-hour layover, then get on a 13-hour flight to Houston. With all of the time difference, we get in on the "same" day about 8 hours later. I have the feeling it's going to be the longest day of my life, both in hours and in sheer torture. I've been doing a little experiment this week to get the boys ready for the time change because it's tough to adjust to a 14-hour time difference, even for an adult. We've been waking up and going to bed an hour earlier each day so last night the boys were in bed at 5pm and we all woke up at 4am today. Now if I can get them to sleep around 4pm tonight, maybe 3am won't seem quite as painful tomorrow!

I am hoping and praying they'll both be on the best behavior while we're traveling and we'll have some very helpful flight attendants and nice passengers around us. Alex is still easy because he doesn't need a lot of entertainment yet...just give him something to chew on and he's good for 30 minutes. Ben is easier these days because he loves to watch videos so as long as the batteries hold out on his DVD player he can watch Elmo all the way to Texas. And if they'll both sleep at the same time for at least a couple of hours and I can catch some sleep, I think we'll make it!

If you happen to think of us tomorrow, please say a little prayer for a patient mom and two well-behaved children! We are SO excited to go back to Houston and see all the grandparents and family and friends we've missed for so long. A weird part of the expat life is that I'm basically putting my life here on hold for 7 weeks, so I've been saying goodbye to friends all week knowing I won't see them again for nearly 2 months, then I'll go back and pick up with my Texas friends I haven't seen since January. It's nice to have a network of friends on two continents but a little sad that I miss out on big stretches of their lives no matter where I am. I've been so grateful for the thoughtful friends that faithfully keep in touch even when I'm terrible about emailing sometimes because it make the miles shrink away and I've become a huge blog addict so I can watch my friends' kids grow and keep up with things back in the US. Thank goodness for the internet!