Spring Forward

As a teenager and young adult, I preferred "Fall Back." Who wouldn't? An hour more sleep!

As a parent of young children, I've been extolling the virtues of "Spring Forward" for the same reason. Picture this: it's Sunday night, and the clock on the DVD player says midnight. "Time for bed!" you think to yourself. But your body feels like it's only 11:00, so you're really going to bed a bit earlier than usual. Then, on Monday morning, your children awake at what feels like their usual time to them, but is 7:00 according to the clock beside the bed! Bonanza! You feel like you've won twice, and you really are probably getting about a hour more sleep than normal.

Sunday night wasn't bad, but, sadly, last night didn't work quite the way I had hoped. Ellie's been in a fighting bedtime phase for a several weeks, which is frustrating and tiring. Then, for some reason, Ada woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to nurse for a long time. Soon after that Ellie got up for the day at some ridiculous hour, like 4:30 or something like that. At that point, things are all a bit fuzzy in my head, and Paul's too. At one point, he found her curled up in bed with us . . . wearing nothing on her bottom half. That could have been bad, but she was wide awake so we were safe. Predictably, by time to leave for school this morning, Ellie was a weepy, tired mess.

Here's hoping that tonight is better! Also, Paul's head is full of pressure and he's running a fever this morning. (Of course, he's at work.) There's a chance all this could throw a major wrench into our plans to take a pleasure drive of more than 2000 miles later this week.