Have you ever… ?

Have you ever tried to live a normal life with four jet-lagged children? Add to this the complications that you have taken on two new jobs and they both start the week you get back and you yourself are jet lagged too? In this scenario, you end up eating crumpets with your children at 3 in the morning, hoping that with a bit of food they might get drowsy again and go back to sleep, contemplating feeding them a shot of brandy to really do the trick, having a shot of brandy yourself, and forgetting about them for a little while… Then in the morning trying to convince the little zombies that they have to go to school, because they will adjust better (and because you have to be somewhere else rather than tending to zombified children).

At least the flight home was better than the flight over. At Bangkok airport on our two hour stop-over between 10 hour flights, the vomit count was already too large to keep track of, with three of them on the go. Nutty power had kicked in by that stage and I vowed to rename these three children: Chuck, Chuck and Chuck. The girls said I would have to at least have Chuck1, Chuck2 & 3. Do you know anyone else who steals airline vomit bags on the way out of an aircraft?

Unfortunately on the landing into Bangkok Sally’s vomit caught her by surprise and ended up all over her jeans. The poor thing had to walk the long walk with wet, slightly crusty jeans. Our first challenge was to buy a change of clothes for her at the airport. The only thing we could find was a pair of silk pyjamas. Thankfully she adored them. They had a little elephant print all over them and were lovely and soft to wear. As you can see she was quite content after she changed:

Rosie on the other hand was sick at the airport just as we were putting our hand luggage through the scanner. Luckily she made it to the waste bins in time. Not so lucky for the airport staff. Poor Emma was sick multiple times on the plane.

Throughout our six weeks in Europe in and out of airplanes, trains, buses and hire cars, we have tried every possible travel sickness medicine. Our main problem was with Emma, who vomited on every journey but refused to take anything in tablet form. In the end we just made sure we journeyed with enough plastic bags to cover it and put up with the smell. Finally in the third week of our trip we found travel sickness medicine in a gum form at a chemist in Italy that Emma agreed to take. Then in London we discovered a chewy pastille form – this was the most successful and we were wishing we bought more packs because we haven’t been able to find it anywhere else.

Can you imagine walking into a chemist in a foreign country whose language you really don’t speak unless its to order from a menu, and having to mime travel sickness medicine for children? Have you ever?