Oh my God, there’s been a time change.
Those of you without toddlers in the house probably think of this is the “good” time change. A whole bonus hour of sleep. Or maybe, if you prefer, an extra hour for blogging. Or perhaps a whole free hour to catch up on back episodes of High Stakes Poker. In any case, the chance to arrive at work on Monday morning feeling like you got a wee little holiday.
But for those of us with toddlers…this is one where our kids think they are getting up at the usual time, but really are getting up at 5 a.m. And are more than ready to go. Let’s get up! Let’s go out! Let’s do stuff! Poor Sir Monkeypants really took the brunt of it this morning, as he got up with both the Captain and the Gal, and got them all dressed and fed and ready for their early Sunday morning gymnastics class, only to find out it was still 6 in the morning. Crap!
Then comes the post-dinnertime trauma, in which they think it is bedtime, but really we have a whole extra hour to go, and we have to find something soothing and fun but not-too-fun to keep them awake but not hysterical. Then you put them to bed with strict instructions NOT to get up until the clock on their bedside table says “6:00” and pray that it registers.
Not that getting up in the “morning” is an actual concept in my life these days. I was up four times in the night last night, twice to take little ones to the bathroom, and twice to feed the baby. On the plus side, I almost made a cutesy blog entry at what I thought was 12:30 a.m., to make today’s post for NaBloPoMo, but it would have turned out to have been an hour too early.
I think. Time for some coffee!
TurtleHead 
Just more evidence that Daylight Savings Time is the SOURCE OF ALL EVIL.
Oh, the dreaded time change! *cringes* It’s easier now that Zack is almost 6 and gets himself up without bothering us and fixes his own breakfast, but it was still odd to hear him puttering around at his usual wake-up time and then looking at the clock and seeing 5:00 a.m. Bedtime hopefully won’t be too much of a hassle, since he reads to himself if he’s not sleepy. Daylight Savings Time should be abolished, just for the sake of sleepy parents everywhere.
Actually my feeling is that non-daylight saving time is the real evil. To me it would be preferable if we were on DST year-round. I’m certainly pleased that non-DST has been considerably shortened… maybe they’ll abolish it completely?
But either way, the idea of making the entire country change their clocks for a few isolated sectors is kind of ridiculous. I’m sure if it had been proposed today it would never be passed.
For the first time ever, Drama King and I found ourselves cursing the time change. Poor Drama Prince has been discombobulated all day.
I agree…I prefer the DST to the non-DST. When will they just consolidate it? When I have some free time (in, say, 10 years) I’ll start a lobby group.
I dream of the day when our kids will get up and feed themselves while we snooze away. I put the cereal and the plastic bowls on the bottom shelf of the pantry but they’ve yet to take the hint. Maybe I need to put a bowl of candy there, along with the TV remote with a big green arrow pointing to the power button.
Would that make me a bad parent? 🙂
The other one is the good one for parents. Your kids get to go to bed an hour earlier than usual, while you’re still pepped up. It’s the parents’ mini vacation!
Not that this will make you feel any better, but I think Mr Excitement didn’t even notice. This is his third time change; the first was definitely a challenge (probably took us a week to get back to what passed for ‘normal’ back then), I think the second was difficult too. But last night we were visiting friends who also have a boy the same age as Mr E; we got home a little late and he went to bed about an hour later than usual. He was up a little early today but went to bed at his normal time tonight, and I don’t think he’s any the wiser.
Of course he’s developed a couple of useful traits in this regard — although he usually goes to bed without a huge amount of fuss at the same time every night, when required he has absolutely no difficulty staying up well past his bedtime. And if he wakes up a little earlier than I’m expecting him to he doesn’t usually mind hanging out in his crib until I’m ready to come get him.
You know, expressing all of this has made me realize that it’s easy to focus on all the ways that our kids are difficult and forget the ways in which we’re lucky. Besides the above Mr Excitement is generally a really good eater and a pretty good sleeper, a couple of things I know some parents really have trouble with. We’re always whining about how he throws, hits, and generally doesn’t listen to what we tell him (unless he wants to, of course) — but we’re lucky in other ways, so I guess it all balances out.
Of course we only have one — I can’t even imagine how much more these things matter when you have three…
So, so true. I sometimes feel like all I do in this blog is whine and complain, but really, our kids are totally awesome — well behaved, generally good sleepers and good eaters. We never have to worry when we are playing at someone else’s house — we know that no matter where they are, they aren’t breaking things or causing trouble.
Plus, they are totally cute :).
Crap… We used to be able to say that Mr E never breaks things at other kids’ places, until Saturday night, when a toy did get broken. We don’t know who broke it though. But yeah, generally he’s pretty well-behaved too. Now if he would just hurry up with the talking already…