Lack of Sleep

Things have been pretty intense and insane around here in the past week or so.
So I apologise for not updating as promised in my previous post.

Where do I even start?

Ok so here's what's happening in the past week since returning to Melbourne.

We've been struggling with sleep. Or more precisely, the lack of sleep.
Xander has not been sleeping well since we came back to Melbourne, and I attribute it to a myriad of crazy factors that came together in creating the perfect storm.
There's the fact that we are coming off the back of a hectic 3 weeks in Singapore.
Plus the time difference - 2 hours may not sound like much, but to a little baby, it's massive.
Then there's the difference in weather, where it's FREEZING cold in Melbourne after spending 3 weeks in hot and humid Singapore.
And there's the outrageous (lack of) daylight hours - sun rises around 7am and sets at 5pm - which messes up his natural body clock BIG time.
Also, I think he has gotten used to the co-sleeping that was going on when we were in Singapore, forced by the lack of space and it was the only sleeping arrangement that worked. So much so that coming back and having to sleep in his own crib again pissed him off some.
One week on, and we're still up at all hours of the night.
Last night and the night before, it was EVERY.SINGLE.HOUR.
People, this mama is TIRED.
And his papa too.
I haven't had the chance to recover from the trip myself.
Sigh.

I think to reinforce my pain on this issue, I need to first tell you what transpired on our flight back to Melbourne from Singapore.
Our flight was due to depart Singapore at 10.30pm Saturday night and arrive in Melbourne at 7.40am Sunday morning.
Things were pleasant on the flight.
The baby nursed and slept and jumped on our laps.
Then he nursed and slept some more.
There was turbulence so the bassinet couldn't be used.
So he slept on me.
Fine, except that I was stiff and sore from not being able to move much while he slept.
When meal times came, hubs fed me cos I was not hands-free.
Needless to say, I didn't get much snooze in at all.
And I was SO looking forward to touching down and heading home.
I spent my time staring at the flight path on the screen in front of me and counting down the time to arrival.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Well, sort of anyway.
We were approaching Melbourne when the captain came on the PA system.
He said there was heavy fog blanketing Melbourne and we were not able to approach the airport for landing.
So we were gonna circle around the area until the weather clears.
Not sure how long, but hopefully not long.
So we circled.
And circled.
And circled.
We dozed in fitful spurts.
After what seemed like forever but was indeed only about 45 minutes, the captain came on again and said that the weather's not clearing, we were gonna continue, but we only have enough fuel for another hour of circling before we had to re-direct the plane to Adelaide airport for re-fueling.
I woke up from my sleep and all I heard was "1 hour" "Adelaide airport" "we'll keep you posted".
I looked at hubs and went "oh shit. seriously?!"
Next thing I knew, I woke up again and saw Adelaide airport as the destination on the flight path on screen.
WTF.
By then, it was past 9am (around 10am?) already.
(To be honest, I have no idea what time it was. I'm just guessing here.)
The couple with the 10 month old baby boy next to us had been flying for the past 24 hours from Munich and they were PISSED.
Added to that the fact that they had run out of diapers for their kid and only had 1 last portion of formula milk for him and he was HUNGRY.
I felt for them, but secretly thanked my lucky stars for breastfeeding because that's one source of nutrition that I had an abundance of.
Seriously, there's was no more food on the plane for me and other passengers, but plenty to keep X going.
We landed in Adelaide around 10 plus in the morning and waited on the tarmac on some unused runway.
We had run out of fuel and Adelaide airport was on overdrive because almost all flights bound for Melbourne that morning were diverted there and in all honesty, they are SO NOT EQUIPPED to deal with that many extra flights on a Sunday morning.
So we just sat there and we waited.
And waited and waited.
Captain said that they were waiting on a tow to the parking bay but airport authorities seemed to have forgotten about us.
Ok. Seriously?
I had completely lost track of the time by then because I was so tired and delirious already.
Then we finally managed to park.
And people were itching to get off the plane to stretch their legs and get some food.
But we weren't allowed to for quite some time.
Maybe an hour later, they decided that it was ok for us to disembark for awhile while they re-fueled.
We got off, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, bought some food, and waited to board again.
All in all, by the time we got back to Melbourne, it was past 3pm in the evening.
And we had to take a cab home, which cost us $130.
WTF again.
We reached home around 5pm.
Then it was a flurry of activity at home - unpacking, vacuuming, bathing the kid and putting the kid down for bed.
Oh boy.
A nightmare I don't want repeated ever again.

So yes.
After that whole debacle, I desperately needed to catch up on sleep.
But a whole week and 2 days later, I'm even more sleep deprived than I was then.
SIGH.

You know, I don't even know if I'm making any sense today.
It all seems like a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo that is a pain in the butt to read.
I blame it on being tired.
*shrugs*

I got so much I wanna blog about that I think I need to create random headings for it to all make sense.
I think I'm just gonna post this crap entry and start anew.