Sleep Deprivation and Hotel Rooms

I am not trying to say that my first week of motherhood hasnt been absolutely amazing, however...I am starting to get tired of the living out of the small hotel room with a 14+ month old buddha baby who has now decided to express some of the less contemplative sides of her personality. We have to eat every meal out, except I feed her lunch in the room a lot. I have been having a "cafe vanilla freeze" for lunch every couple of days and then we go out for dinner by 5:30pm...another "wow, I cant believe it moment"...dinner at 5:30. I am very much looking forward to being at home and having a high chair. A stroller is a great substitute for a lot of things, but certainly not ideal.

My wonderful friends Joy and Loreen have been great supports and we usually go out together, but it occurred to us yesterday that our recent Hanoi burn out might be related to the fact that all 3 of us are traveling alone. Joy's picture was in my last post with her adorable daughter, Miss Personality, Annie. I will post Loreen tomorrow. We have also made other friends AND my PLAN friend from Roslindale MA (my town!!) just arrived on Sunday and picked up her baby girl yesterday.

Not that it isnt great fun to test one's pedestrian vs motorbike skills every day, but after our cab driver got lost today and just stopped the cab in the middle of who knows where and dumped the folded up strollers on the street, demanded his money and pointed us to follow some random woman on the street back toward our hotel. Very funny in retrospect and actually pretty funny in the moment, but we had just returned from out cultural excursion to the Temple of Literature, which by the way is not a museum with books...its a beautiful old (like 1070AD) academic institution that housed the likes of Confucious. Interesting and simple in its ancient elegance.

OK, I am off to bed...sorry no pics until tomorrow. Lucie has been fussing every couple of hours each of he past 5 nights - she has been sick (and gassy, I think) and maybe a bit freaked out, so I 'd best go catch some sleep while I can.

Tomorrow we pick up the passports for the babies, then they have a required medical exam, then our Visa interview at teh Embassy Monday. We are hoping taht we will be able to request earlier flights and get out of here a day or two before next Friday 09/26, my original leave date. Cross your fingers for us. Until we meet again.