Falling Backwards

I do not understand Daylight Savings Time. I do not mean that I don't know the history or reasoning behind it. I mean I don't understand why we think it's a good idea to play with time. It seems so arrogant to me. Twice a year we spend a good week resetting our internal clocks for the sake of a little more daylight. Oh, wait....we don't actually GET anymore daylight. We only get the daylight at a different time of day. And I don't know about you, but I have no need for it to be light at Ten O'clock at night, which it is around here by the end of summer. I would rather have left the clocks where they were and let the sun set at Nine. Maybe then my kids would fall asleep at a slightly more reasonable time.

I think that last sentence encapsulates my true issue with Daylight Savings Time. My kids. As much as I was irritated by the time change when I was childless, at least I knew that for every Spring Forward that cost me an hour of sleep, there was a Fall Back that would give that hour back to me. The only internal clock I had to reset was my own, and although that wasn't fun, it was do-able. Now I have to reset the internal clocks of a 2 year-old and a 14 month old. I have looked and looked and they do not have a handy zipper in the back where I can access the dial for their time keepers. So my kids have woken up at 6 am the last two days. Trying to tuck them back in and tell them it's still night time doesn't work because it's light outside. Because we're not saving daylight anymore....we're just throwing it away in the morning. Yesterday when we picked Micah up in the nursery at church he was uncharacteristically grumpy. He was crying and red faced and inconsolable. It took me a few minutes to figure out why. It was 12:45, which to his little body is still 1:45. He should have already had lunch and be napping. Instead he was still at church. All because of this silly thing we grown ups do every year called Falling Back. Don't even get me started on the ugliness that is Springing Forward. Just try telling a baby that he has to go to bed an hour earlier than his body is used to!

So as I type this, my kids think it's 8:26, but it's only 7:26. Right about the time they should have woken up. Because I can't let them think it's ok to be up as early as they were this morning, they are stuck in their beds reading books (semi) quietly until I decide to set them free. I feel like a very mean mommy, but it's the only thing I know to do. Do any of you out there have any suggestions for me?

Well, either way, happy Monday, friends! Sorry I've been gone so long. I've had a little writer's block! It took something I feel very passionately about, like Daylight Savings Time, to get me back on the horse! Go figure.