Out Of Step

With the time change comes the inevitable onslaught of posts and comments from pet owners and parents of young children. My cat didn't get the time change and woke me at 5am. The baby refused to go to sleep and now is up at 3am. The dog was ready to go out at 4am.

The adults in these situations always seem to be fine with whatever time change there is. In this case, we were given an extra hour to sleep in. All grown peoples were supposed to simply enjoy their extra hour of sleeping in and then adjust, going to be when the clock's numbers seemed right, and waking at their usual waking time.

I know, I know, the time change was a week ago!
I am not most people.

I blame it on my routine. From day to day, or week to week, I am usually pretty certain of what I will be doing. If it's Wednesday morning I'm cleaning the house. Thursday I'm paying the bills. Friday I'm grocery shopping. After the boys come home we dash to do a quick homework, practice piano, off to karate or wherever, and then I throw dinner together. We eat, I clean up quickly, bathe the boys, read them books, and then to bed.

The time change throws a wrench in everything. I am so habitual that I can't sleep in. This means I'm awake at 4:30, staring at the ceiling. I force myself to wait until 5 before finally creeping down to the basement to work out. I don't know why I'm creeping, The boys are awake.

 When I get up from my workout, it is now still pitch dark. By lunchtime I'm starving. By dinner the boys are tired and cranky and Nate is falling asleep at the table. I have a thing inside my head saying 'hurry hurry hurry!" like it's already 10pm, so we rush through baths and then rush through stories.

"You do know it's 7:18," Steve said the other day after I tucked the boys into bed.

I knew. But they were exhausted. And I was exhausted.

I have to say that I can understand the point of time change in olden times, before the light bulb, when people rarely rose before dawn or stayed up past dark. But these days we do both, come winter. Does it matter if the hours are int he morning or the evening? No. So what, I ask, is the point? I have yet to hear an argument that convinces me that this was a good idea.

Meanwhile, I'm just bumbling around, trying to make things more normal.