Sigh . . . Time to Turn the Clocks Back

Once a year we get the infamous 'do over'. A chance to turn back the clock one hour and start over. I used to live for this day. 

When I was a teenager, this day represented an opportunity to get a much needed extra hour of sleep - meaning my Mom had to wait an extra hour before nagging me to get up and get busy. I cherished this day, and looked forward to it all year long.

As a younger adult, this day represented an extra hour before closing time at the bar. I'd get to listen to 'Closing Time' not once, but twice. What a great night!

As a parent with a young daughter, daylight savings time always afforded me the chance to arrive somewhere either an hour early, or more likely, have children arrive at my house an hour early because their parents forgot to turn the clocks back. Either that, or they just wanted to get rid of their kids early and feigned ignorance about the time change. 

Now, as a parent with three young children who have a knack for waking up at 6 a.m. no matter what time they go to bed, I dread the 'do over' day. Because they will be up at 5. Instead of an extra hour of sleep, I get an extra hour of whining, crying, fighting, and misery fun because we kept them up late the night before in the hopes that they would sleep in. One would think that we would know better by now - I mean they are 8 and 5 years old - it's not like we haven't walked this road before. Yet foolishly, we hold out hope every year.

This got me to thinking . . . if we are going to get to 'do over' hour, why couldn't it have been at 5:30 yesterday when we went to that awful Chinese Food restaurant and I gorged on ginger beef and spring rolls? I could have saved myself some misery. Or at 9:00 two Thursdays ago when I arrived at the Kindergarten class AFTER everyone had left on the field trip.

Sigh . . . oh well. Maybe I can get the kids to go to sleep at 6:30 tonight. At least it will be dark out.




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