Daylight Savings Time is one of Dante's circles of hell for parents with young children.
After six months of adjusting your children to not get out of bed until 6 a.m., Daylight Savings Time comes to blow all of your hard work out of the water. It's not the child's fault that they are accustomed to waking up at a certain time but it is hard to remember that at 5 a.m. when their little robot-synchronized internal alarms launch them out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, smiling and loud-talking, ready to take on the day.
Friends, it is beyond horrible.
It doesn't help that their mother is in the midst of deadline city in her first semester of graduate school and she is blowing deadlines like she is working full-time in a bubble factory.
It certainly doesn't help when their father is in the midst of theatre rehearsals after working a full day.
Children, your parents are tired. Please, remember that we are the ones that feed you and if we are cranky, we may eat all of your Halloween candy after you have fallen asleep at 6 p.m.
I have been brainstorming some Daylight Savings Time "Save the Sleep" strategies to get through this adjustment period to varying degrees of success.
So far I have learned that uncontrollable weeping (mine) has no effect on children's sleep patterns. Also, I have discovered that at the moment I am falling asleep, one of the children will wake up screaming from a nightmare about monsters in closets. This will shock me into staying awake for an additional three hours as a result of the adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream.
Additionally, I have learned that in the event I have multiple school deadlines coming up, I will absolutely come down with the worst cold in existence, sapping me of all energy, rendering me all but useless in my studies. Of particular delight during this time of illness and no sleep, I will discover that I have somehow forgotten about two entire papers (big ones) due on the same week on top of the other papers that have piled up, unfinished and panic inducing.
Of all of the Daylight Savings Times, I prefer the theoretical gaining of an hour of sleep in the fall, however, I really wish it were absolutely true. As an added delight, the articles discussing the negative effects of sleep-deprivation seem to appear with increasing frequency so I can add the worry of getting Alzheimer's disease to my overflowing plate.
Daylight Savings Time, you suck.
