The Truth About Daylight Savings

Dear Em,
Last week we sprang forward for daylight savings time (I've actually been through 5 time changes due to travel & daylight savings in the past month...sleeping on any type of schedule has really become a challenge). I wrote something on Facebook about gaining an hour of sleep, & most people thought I was confused. I'm not confused. I know that clocks moved forward by an hour. I know everyone else "lost" an hour last weekend.

I remember daylight savings before we had you. I remember looking forward to the clocks moving back an hour in the fall & dreading the precious hour of sleep we were losing when clocks moved forward in the spring. I remember being up until 1am (or was it 2am), & smiling because we were either going to relive an hour of time or time was going to speed up by an hour. I almost never make it until 1am (or was it 2am) anymore, & daylight savings hasn't worked the same for us since there was you.

There's something I didn't really think about before I had you. It's something I think most people don't truly think about before they have kids. Which leads me to wonder if the people who created daylight savings had kids... or a clue. Young children can't tell time.

You, like most small children, are above clocks. Clocks are superfluous. To you those silly things are basically just decorations in our home. Conventions like time mean nothing to you. You're hungry when you're hungry. You're tired...well...never. You have your own internal clock. It doesn't matter what time we put you to bed, you wake up at the same time. Things like daylight savings don't concern you.

The rest of the country may enjoy an extra hour of sleep as they "fall back" in November. The rest of the country is probably deep in slumber at 5:15am the morning after. Not at our house. You don't fall back. It may be an hour earlier for everyone else, but you're awake expecting us to be functioning parents. It takes us weeks...months to transition your body to daylight savings. So when it's time to spring forward in March, I feel like we're catching up with the world again. Rather than hearing "Mom!" at 6:15 in the morning, you actually slept until the clock said 7:15am. Let me tell you, it's was amazing. I enjoyed every second of springing forward that first morning.

Did you know that Arizona doesn't recognize daylight savings? They don't have to try to fool & retrain their children's internal clocks. Doesn't it sound heavenly...& absolutely logical? I will vote for any Rhode Island politician who vows to rid our beautiful state of daylight savings. I'm serious. Who's with me? In the meantime, if someone knows how to teach a 3 year old what time is & how to sleep until 8am, I'm all ears.

I love you so,
Mommy