Jet lag: If you can’t beat it, enjoy it.

It’s 2:30 in the morning and two kids are next to my bed asking what we’re going to do.

If you can’t beat it, enjoy it.

Let’s check out our options:

1. Try to go back to sleep.
2. Read books.
3. Have breakfast.
4. Play cards.
5. Watch a movie.
6. Sleep.
7. Rest.
8. Close our eyes.
9. Listen to music.
10. Wait.

Movies and readings usually win out, although we often soon thereafter head into the kitchen for the Late Night Snack that the kids find so fun because it’s so out of the ordinary.

It’s a choice and the choice is yours. You can fight it, but you’re probably going to lose the battle. The kids are wide awake, my kids actually like jet lag because it feels like a secret party, that they’re the only ones awake in the world and it’s all ours, it’s only ours, it’s just us and the night.

Let’s make pancakes, let’s read another Donald Duck aloud, let’s watch Pirates of the Caribbean (again … ). We only have this on rare occasions and it has become a secret time with our family to do what we normally don’t do: be awake in the middle of the night, all together, usually in a place that’s not our home, and have to do something to wait for the sun to rise.

You can fight it or you can go with it. Go with it. Don’t beat the jet lag, be the jet lag.