When I discovered last night that it was time, yet again, to change the clocks, I worked it out in my head. “Ok, it’s Fall. So we have to turn them . . . back? Yeah, I think it’s back. So that means what was once 2:00am is now 1:00am. Oh! This is the good one! This is the one where we gain an hour. Awesome.” And so I started thinking about how this would affect our day, what would happen to the baby’s nap time, how would bedtime change, etc., not realizing that my rejoicing was a leftover remnant of my schooling/working/pre-children days.

When I pictured the next morning I realized something truly awful: The kids don’t give a crap that the time has changed. It’s not like we’re waking up to beeping alarm clocks in my house. No, we have a built-in system that wakes us by poking, whining, sitting on, kicking, and insisting that, “It’s mooooooorniiiiiing!” It matters not what time the clock says. All that matters is whether a weird noise outside occurs at just the time when one of the children is shifting around in light sleep. Then it’s over.

I know some of you understand what I’m saying. We were all waking up early before. But now, ooooh, now what was once just painfully early is now ass-early. Those of use whose children blessed us with a 7:00am wake-up time were roused at what is now technically 6:00am. The unfortunate souls whose kids were of the 6:00am variety now schlep themselves down to make the coffee at, Dear God, 5:00am. And the rare few, those who were already up at the ungodly hour of 5:00am, well, today my heart is with you people. I wish for you that your children are sound asleep before dinner time tonight.

And it’s not just the robbery of my “extra hour” that gets me. Oh no. There’s also the fact that today my day is looooonger. We’ve been up for hours and it’s not even . . . holy crap! It’s not even 9:00am, people. I am that much farther from bedtime. And so the time change debate begins: do I pretend it didn’t happen and put them to bed at their normal hour despite the fact that the clock says it is an hour early, thereby risking another ridiculously early wake up time? Or do I push them to stay awake and try to get us on board with the rest of society, making us all miserable for the rest of this already horribly long day but hopefully, hopefully resulting in the later wake-up tomorrow morn, but most likely failing because the rest of the neighborhood will be up and working hard to create the weird noises outside?

Either way, I’m screwed.

And just think - some people are still in their beds right now, enjoying their “extra” hour of sleep. For the rest of you, you don’t have to tell me why you’re up. Enjoy your coffee; mine’s already gone. It’s 9:01.

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