Mom is here !

I think I love living in Asia because my mom can help out with the kids. The big plus about having kids relatively younger is that they get to meet their grandparents. Sophie is very lucky to have met not only her 4 grandparents but also 3 great-grand parents too.

My mom came to help out when I went to Hong Kong for a meeting last week. Which was a real relief because it was the first overnight trip I was making without Alex. Of course to add insult to injury, Fabien was away for the first half of the week, and I was away on the second part of the week (we crossed each other at the airport because we have the rule that our kids shouldn't spend a night with both parents working overseas).

When I came back I asked mom and my ayis how the kids adjusted to my absence, whereupon ayi said "do you want the truth or the sanitised version?"

As I feared - both kids missed me terribly. Alex found it difficult to sleep and they ran out of Mommy milk (I had seriously underestimated her consumption) so they supplemented with formula, which didn't agree with her. Sophie standing at the window looking downstairs. She said she wanted to try to see Mommy coming home.

Not surprisingly Fab and I had a whole bunch of sleep issues to deal with when I returned. Alex had a really disrupted schedule and Sophie insisted on having somebody in the room with her all the time. To explain why this is terrible, Sophie used to go to bed at 7pm every night by herself (i.e. tell a story, close the door and walk away). Now we have to stay in the room till she falls asleep, but WORSE - when she wakes up at night and finds nobody there, she screams for us until Fab or I show up in the room.