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Oh, Daylight Saving Time. Is it that you were feeling sad and neglected? Do you miss the days when I would mark you on the calendar, conscious of the fact that you would alter our lives unless I began preparing for you weeks in advance? Because I really did start shifting schedules and bedtimes well ahead of D-Day, painfully aware that the same baby or toddler or child who insisted on rising at 5:30 in the morning without fail would, indeed, call for entertainment at the ungodly hour of 4:30 upon the autumn clock change if I didn't thwart such a disaster by inches. Bedtime would be shifted first ten minutes, for a few days. Then twenty minutes. Then half an hour. And with fingers crossed, eventually, the time change would arrive and we'd already have the kids shifted a whole hour. Sanity would prevail.
But I got lazy. I admit it.
I'm not even going to get into it with you about whether or not it makes any sense to change the clocks twice a year. Your history is based on considerations that are outdated, at best, and irrelevant, at worst. But I'm not in charge of these things, so I accept that this is how it is. Fine.
Look --- the kids are older now. I can reason with them (sometimes)! And they don't wake up and scream for me (anymore)! When it's time to change the clocks we just ... change the clocks and go on with our lives. At least, that's what I thought we did. Is it possible I have just repressed past clock-changings?
All I know is this: We changed the clocks last weekend, and now everyone in this house is unable to get out of bed. We have become a family of zombies. I'm thinking that when the not-quite-12-year-old is surreptitiously trying to sneak some of my coffee, something is very wrong. We're all going to bed at our normal times (according to the clock). And yet, alarms are going off in the dark, and snooze buttons are being hit. Repeatedly.
I don't understand how a single hour has thrown us all for such a loop. I do understand that we were finally heading off to school in actual daylight, and you have rudely snatched that luxury from us.
Before this weekend: I woke a full hour before the children, drank my coffee in peace, got a jump-start on my work and took the dog out at my leisure.
After this weekend: I finally drag myself out of bed when I realize that no one is up, and we're all about to late. The dog pesters me to go out while I make breakfast, pack lunches and holler up the stairs half a dozen times that you have to get up right now, I really mean it this time.
I want my hour back, Daylight Saving Time. You are saving me nothing. I'm just going to say it: You're a liar and kind of a jerk. And before you get all "it's not me, it's you," let me just point out that I'm hardly alone in my assessment.
Anne Kennedy of an undercurrent of hostility not only had her baby on a workable schedule, but she had time to nurture herself in the morning. But you ruined all of that.
Kari Henley writes at HuffPo that her her house is "crabby for a week." Which I suspect is putting it more charitably than most.
Calamity Jane at Apron Strings is blunt: "We had a nice routine going, and now it’s all fucked."
And if you need even more evidence, well, at last glance Facebook had over 70 groups dedicated to complaining about you, which, really, I'm not trying to be mean, but it might be time to take the hint, you know?
It's not us. It's you. You suck.
Grumpily yours,
Mir
BlogHer Contributing Editor Mir also blogs about issues parental and otherwise at Woulda Coulda Shoulda, and about the joys of mindful retail therapy at Want Not.
