Jet Lagged with Kids

So... we have arrived in Dublin.  The kids did quite well on the plane even though their personal TV's took precedence over sleep, despite the 9pm flight time.  So, all in all, I would say we each got a good 2 hours of sleep in.  Luke luckily got to nap in his stroller through the long customs line, while poor Maya struggled through lack of sleep and extreme thirst, while pushing luggage and never complained. Once we got through security, the driver that was supposed to pick us up was nowhere to be seen. But Maya played on her leap pad, Luke slept in his stroller, Brendan made some calls and I made friends with a woman in the airport who's children go to St. Matthews in Sandymount which is one of the schools that have a place for Maya. She also lent Brendan her phone since since she could tell we were scrambling and clearly had more luggage than the average traveler.  She was so nice and made a great first impression of the country, city and hopefully the area of the city we will eventually live in.

Once our driver finally arrived and we were delivered to our temporary housing we were pleasantly surprised. It was clean and and airy and right across the river from Brendan's office.  The beds were inviting and we all were able to take nap for a couple hours, Brendan's was cut short by having to go to the office and deal with a few arrival logistics, but the rest of us pretty much napped until shortly before being picked up by our relocater, Veron to look at a house.

When Veron picked us up we were still pretty groggy, but excited to start the house hunt. She took us to Blackrock and the area where the house was located was really nice and you could see that it would be nice for kids, but it made for a pretty long commute for Brendan since the house was not that close to the DART (Dublin's rail system) and the third bedroom was not much bigger than a closet. Other than that the house was great, but probably would not work for us since we were hoping to put both kids into the third bedroom and have an actual guest room.. we don't want to discourage visitors!

That night we attempted for an early bedtime to try and acclimate ourselves to Dublin time, but that backfired. The kids went to bed at an earylish time despite the mid day naps, but woke up around midnight and were fully rested right at the time we were completely exhausted. This jet lagged with kids thing is pretty rough.

Finally all were asleep and woken up around 8 am with Luke puking. When it rains it pours... although the weather has actually been lovely since we have arrived.  Brendan stayed home with Luke since he continued to puke all morning and Maya and I went with Veron to look at some more houses. We saw a few more houses in Blackrock that were over our budget and pretty reminiscent of Kelly's Senior year house at Bates! Later in the day we went and looked at a house up in Clontarf that was PERFECT, aside from the fact Maya does not have a school up there and the house is unfurnished and all our furniture is currently sitting in my grandmother's loft in Boxford. Still we are not ruling this house out, Veron is looking into where we might be able to find a place for Maya in school and I have determined I could minimally furnish the house for about 4000 euro at IKEA.

All our hopes at the moment are riding on a viewing tomorrow night at a house in Sandymount, where we have a school and the location would be ideal for Brendan's commute. So fingers crossed!! The house would meet our budget and potentially be ok without a car!  Stay tuned and we will let you know how it all pans out.