Remember when you were in college, and they had nickel beer night at the bar. Oh sure, it's illegal now. Because we showed up, in droves, and took complete advantage of the blessed opportunity of which we'd been bestowed. Because if you're in college, and it's nickel beer night, and if you don't go, you have failed your university as a tuition paying student, as a child of a parent paying that tuition, saving your parents hundreds of dollars, and basically as a human being. In holy terms, nickel beer night is a Rite of Passage. It's a requirement, and the sheer pressure of getting kicked out because you didn't take advantage of a moment of opportunity in time, the shame, it's overwhelming.
The parental equivalent of that shame is the once a year occurence of Daylight Savings Time.
I'm a failure as a parent. I mean, if I can't have some personal gain once a year on Daylight Savings Time, I'm a total failure. Last night we went to sleep, bidding good night to Ricardo's parents. I was reminded it was daylight savings time and we get an extra hour to sleep. What delightful news! I reset the coffee pot so not to be disturbed with actually having to manually turn it on in the morning and went upstairs to bed.
In all my brilliance (Inevitably, this will balance out of brilliance and moronal bliss to a nice average, I'm sure.) I have taught Lucy, the early bird, that she can't get out of her bed until 7a.m. At 6:45a.m., she rolls in with some ridiculous story about "I had a nightmare, blah blah blah". With my best morning breath, I explained three happy thoughts and sent her back to bed. I'm pretty sure Unicorns were in the mix. Fifteen minutes later, after the fastest unicorn dream in the history of time, Lucy's back at my bed side, explaining, "IT'S SEVEN!" And if I could please escort her downstairs, that would be great.
We get downstairs, and that's when I realize that I never set my clock, more importantly, Lucy's clock back. And it is 6a.m., not 7a.m. That's a big difference. I considered hauling her butt back to bed, but the explanation to a 5 year-old was exhausting. I'll make up my hour somehow, later.
Lucy and I made lemonade out of lemons, and cranked on the tv. I don't know when the last time I got to watch my favorite kids show, the Higglytown Heroes was on. Probably since before Lucy could read 7 on a clock, because it comes on at 6:30. Although not planned, and somewhat against my will, that was the best extra hour, snuggling on the couch, watching PizzaGuy and giggling. It was a flashback to many the early mornings when they were babies.
I mentioned to her later that day that SOMEBODY woke me up early, and she so apologetically told me, "Mom, I didn't know it wasn't SEVEN!" I explained that it was okay, and that I enjoyed our time together.
Nowadays, it seems like we hit the floor running. I shout commands at them and we get out the door, somehow, to school on time each day. I think next year, I'll plan to fall back with Lucy again.
Happy Daylight Savings Time.
That's how I roll.
You are so cool! Some day we'll be grand-parents and we can get up at 6:00 with our grand kids!
I've never stopped getting up at dark-thrity, eventhough in the past three years it's not required that I get up at 4 a.m.
This "Fall Back" and "Spring Forward" nonsense is what's wrong with all of us. It's our MISSING SLEEP, NOT STRESS OF DAILY LIVING, that's responsible for the influx of all the SLEEP DEPRIVATION AIDS on TV that are flooding the airwaves. It's the TIME CHANGE twice a year that we've been enduring since the 50's that our government insists we need to do, and the reasoning behind this insane practice keeps changing every time some hits upon some truth. I don't think Indiana participates in the time changes. Let's all just not change our clocks!!!!!!!!!!
Uhhh....sorry....um, err, I haven't been getting much sleep.