The one little problem with traveling when they serve a full dinner and  entertainment on the personal TV is Liam was wired while Wade and I wanted to join the deep sleep of the trans-Atlantic vampires.   With about 3 hours left in our flight, I had to raise my voice at him to get his headphones off and close his eyes.  The good news about the Bose noise cancelling headphones is nobody else could hear me yell.  The bad news about the Bose noise canceling headphones is Liam couldn’t hear me either.  And as some may have experienced,  when you get wound up about not getting sleep, your body keeps fighting the sleep because you’re too wound up.  Yep, that was me.  I had lovely chats with the flight attendants, read a novel and watched a couple of movies I had only heard of.  Liam fell asleep about 2.5 hours before landing, and I closed my eyes just as they were rolling the breakfast cart down the aisle.

When we got to the hotel, they had our room ready.  We took all our luggage and deposited it in the room,  quickly washed our faces, freshened up, and headed out for a little walk…in the rain.  With no umbrella.  And no anti frizz for my hair.  No matter that my wool coat smelled like a wet Irish sheep in June, I was so obsessed with getting a decent international lunch that I hardly noticed the looks and the parting of crowds as we walked into the Italian restaurant. Surely the piquancy preceded me and the horror of them turning to the smell and finding me with hair larger than the set tables allowed us to be served right away.  We were set in the back and several waiters and waitresses took turns waiting on us, probably as part of their dares.  But I digress…

I ordered Spaghetti Carbonara, the most calorie laden, artery clogging (and oh,so delicious!)  dish ever made. Wade and Liam ordered pizzas~more benign but just as filling. No coffee or caffeine for me~I was ready to delve into our new surroundings, barely fueled by sleep deprived endorphins. Despite our best intentions to walk and explore (and fight the jet lag), we caved and went back to the hotel.   We “only” slept an hour and a half before heading out in pursuit of a few famous French superstructures.

Later that evening, after a wonderful pub dinner and pretending to understand the rugby game on TV  so we could cheer  with our fellow diners (France was playing Japan, that much we gathered!),  we went back to the hotel to retire.  An easy albeit late night ensued and we all slept a good nine hours.  We all felt ready to become Parisians that morning…

Until  noon the next day.   Between the gray, the cold, the wet and the jet lag, I want to take a catnap every two hours.  At night, we fall asleep at 11 and are wide awake at 2. I once saw a poster that said, “Eat. Sleep. Be happy. Repeat.”  We had 3 of the four…but that sleep just doesn’t know its place.

Now we are in our flat and hoping that “settled” feeling helps us sleep like normal people.  Feeling your eyelids drop like a garage door slamming is not a nice feeling.  Especially when you are trying to fit in and look like a Parisian.  I don’t recall that being one of their normal behaviors.

Sleep and normalcy will come, and with that, I will see the graces.  Watching “A Miracle on 34th Street” as a family at 1am will be a fond memory, not routine.  Eating at regular times will be part of our schedules soon enough and eating at restaurants when most people are away allows us to really watch and learn.  I don’t know if the desire to have several cups of cappuccino a day will go away, but I don’t want to completely change the Parisian Mari ways, do I?  And I know the prayers offered when I can’t sleep for those I love in the waking moments somewhere else in the world don’t go unanswered but are heard and answered in His Perfect Time.  I hope I can resign my anxiety over “being here and in perfect sync” with our new home  and just know that all will happen when He sees fit.  I think I will just close my eyes for a minute…