Home Again… Time Change Recovery

East to West Coast travel is supposed to be the easiest from a recovery perspective. Our internal clocks do better with a longer day, then a shorter day. People get over jet lag quicker. Experts suggest that it takes one day per time zone to adjust traveling East, and 75 percent of a day per time zone to adjust traveling West.

However, add in the extra hour flight time due to head wins, and flying during wake time and traveling West is much harder than traveling East with small children.

The flight from DC to San Francisco was five and a half hours. According to Jonathan, who had the “easier” child (our four year old), it was one hour too long.

We had two rows on the flight. Jonathan and Xander took the back row because Xander is a notorious seat kicker. Every flight with our typically sweet and compliant little guy inevitably results in a seat-kicking incident so appalling that the stranger in front of us, turns and gives the look. You know the one, the “can’t you control your child” look. I recognize the look well, before I was a parent I used to dole it out in spades when I sat in front of a seat kicker… it is not so much fun now that the shoe is on the other foot.

Our 9 am flight started out easy enough, both boys slept for take-off, and a full hour into the flight. When they awoke it was breakfast time. We purchased yogurt parfaits (Caleb is a lover of yogurt). Both boys were happy, sticky and now needed to be kept entertained for three hours.

For two hours they were fairly happy to listen to radio, take down and put up their tray table, disconnect and reconnect the in air phone, play with trains, play with cars, flip through magazines, read books, and color.

Then with an hour left in the flight, Jonathan was out of ideas with Xander. I was okay because Caleb had discovered that a stinky diaper was the quickest way for him to be allowed out of his seat, and to be able to explore the bathroom (three stinky diapers in two-hours – I think he is ready to be potty trained).

Everyone was happy to be off the flight and home again.

We arranged for grocery delivery for when we got home so we would at least have the staples… By 3 pm that afternoon though we were all hungry (but no one was eating), and tired (but no one took a nap). We had skipped lunch and planned an early dinner – just not early enough. I think the boys were sick of goldfish and peanut butter crackers. In retrospect we should have planned our first meal a little better, but we were so dead tired that was not the time for practical inspiration.

The boys bounced back from the time change quickly. They went to sleep at 7:45 pm, and were up at their typical 6:30 am the next morning. It took everyone about two days to completely bounce back, so I guess the experts are right.