This is day four or five, I forget, that we have been moving our bedtime and alarmtime earlier. Thursday at 4am, we leave for Ohare, but that’s not the reason we’ve been experimenting. Rather, it is because we will arrive in Zurich, Lord willing, at 7:35am their time, about 12:00am our time.
A few years ago, we travelled to Ireland with Betsy’s sister Wendy and her husband Tim. In typical fashion, the women wanted to make the most of the trip and so we had a GRUELLING schedule that began as soon as we arrived at Dublin…the dawn of a new day there and the beginning of the night back here. I failed to plan ahead, and, just try driving on narrow roads, on the wrong side of the road, without sleep, and seasonal allergies necessitating five kinds of medicine (one to make you drowsy, one to keep you awake, one to cut the sneezing, another for the itchy eyes…you get the picture). It was on this trip that I earned the nickname “Rustle” as I often awakened in the early morning from allergy issues, found my way into the bathroom (of our shared bedroom – my fault – blame my penny-pinching predisposition of yesteryear) and took more meds while working on my laptop–anything to pass the time when the other three would awaken, feeling refreshed, and ready for their chauffeur to whisk them away on another harrowing journey to some forbidden (or was it foreboding) castle, flower garden, or icy stream. Oh, it was nine years ago…apparently the memories are more deeply etched in my mind than usual.
So, in an effort to not start out the epic Europe 2026 trip (with my family of nine, my parents, and my wife’s mother) the same way, and again being responsible for chauffeuring the Big Beautiful Bus (I’m not complaining, I’d rather drive than ride, usually), I wanted to make sure I could sleep on the plane. That means making sure every little one is sleeping first, or else, as you parents know, there’s no sleeping for me. First, we woke up everyone at 5am. That was great. Then 4am. That was okay. Then 3am. The fallout began. This morning for me? 1:45am. It wasn’t that I was refreshed, it was the body didn’t know what it was doing anymore.
Interestingly, the mornings have been exciting. We watched pictures one morning, watched a storm on our patio another, had Betsy’s Birthday Breakfast another, and now are packing bags. Goal tonight: 4:30pm bedtime. Benadryl for all…Betsy says, our trip memories have started already! Hopefully those aren’t like the ones from Ireland circa 2017!
So, professor, what did we learn?
Nothing says ‘exciting European vacation’ quite like a 4:30 PM bedtime and a group dose of Benadryl.