Daylight Saving Time

To sit on my couch tonight, I had to move two remote controls, four board books, a toast fossil, two Dum Dum lollipop wrappers, a half-eaten banana, and an empty lunch bag.  And that was just to find enough room for my butt.   I won’t disclose the list of other crap on my couch; that would be embarrassing.

None of that has anything to do with the rest of this post, but I was so encouraged by hearing from a friend about her carpet this morning that I felt compelled to share.   My friend’s dog peed on her carpet, her son vomited on the carpet, and then she tripped on the dog and bled on her carpet.  She’s taken so many sick days from work that she made her husband take a sick day to stay home with the vomitter and left him (her husband, not the child) with the number for the carpet cleaner.

I don’t know why stories like that lift my soul, but they do.  Sharing time is a happy time, so I’m spreading the love.

You’re welcome.

In other news, I hate springing forward.

Every time we enter Daylight Saving Time, I do research on whether this nonsense is really necessary.

Just so you know, it’s not.  I think it’s a special way to torture parents of young children with the knowledge that they’re losing an hour of sleep.

I try to console myself with the idea that we’ll fall out of Daylight Saving Time eventually, and we’ll get the hour back.  Sadly, when you’re parents of very, very young children, even falling back is cruel. Instead of gaining an hour of sleep as granted by our altruistic government, young kiddos stick to their regular sleep routine.  Explaining the “fall back” concept to a four-year-old does nothing to gain you more sleep.  Nothing, I tell you.

I was late getting ready this morning.

I’m late most mornings, but this morning, I get to blame it on Daylight Saving Time.  OK, chalk one up for Daylight Saving Time.  I like excuses.

Just so you know, it takes exactly 4 minutes to drive from my house to Aden’s school, including stopping at the light between here and there.  A leisurely drive to school happens on mornings when I have 6 minutes.

This morning, I had 8 minutes.  Which would’ve been great (that’s 100% more time than I need, folks!), except that I drop my twins off at our neighbors’ house first.  The twin drop-off usually takes 5 minutes.  That would’ve left me with 3 minutes to get Aden to school.

I tried to shorten kiss and hug time with Cai and Cael.  Instead of kissing them at our neighbors’ front door, I kissed them getting out of the car.  That there’s a time-saver!

Unfortunately, my change in routine and kiss brevity weren’t appreciated.  I had to do remedial make-up kissing and hugging sessions lest I hurt preschool feelings.  And, fine, also because my niece is sick so I’m a kissing push-over these days.  You want 25 kisses?  You got ’em, Kid!

Then there’s Cai, my long kisser.  And by long kisser, I mean llllooooooonnnnnggggg kisser.  That kid puts his baby wips on my mine and won’t let up.  I love it very much, and I know it’s not gonna happen when he’s 14, so I live it up now.

Sometimes I wonder whether my kids know I’m a push-over or if I just feel like that a lot of the time.

Then I get texts like this from my neighbor right as I’m pulling out of the driveway:  Cael just said, “Haha. She kissed and hugged us FOUR times!”

Sheesh.

In the end, I was 1 minute late dropping Aden off.

So much for Kiss Saving Time. Talk about a total and utter failure.

Eh.

Whatever.

Who needs it?

There’s not a bloomin’ thing I can do to change Daylight Saving Time.

But, as the governing body for Kiss Saving Time, that’s right out.

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13 responses to “Daylight Saving Time”

  1. Hazel’s currently telling me that she wants me to “hug her forever… until I’m sixteen.” This while I’m trying to pull away and get out of her room so she’ll go to sleep. Thanks for reminding me I should stay awhile, as I’m guessing 16 is probably closer than I think.

  2. I HATE DST so much. It’s been my mantra these past few days. And, yeah, btw-IT’S NOT EVEN SPRING YET!!!!!
    Excuse me for yelling, but I’m sleep deprived. DST is especially cruel for paper carriers; if anyone truly “loses” an hour sleep, it is us. (we?)
    This morning in the car this was our exchange:
    Me: “Gabe, I love you SO MUCH!”
    Gabe: “I love you so much, too….I bet I know what you’re thinking, mom.”
    Me: “What am I thinking?”
    Gabe: “That in a few years I’ll say, ‘ewwwww’ when you say that.”
    Yep.

    • No one can blame us for yelling for at least a week after DST. That’s my new rule. 🙂

      Paper carrying sounds hard all of the time. Getting up while it’s dark = bleh. Does it help at all that you get to chuck things at people’s houses? I think I’d like that part very much. But not, as you say, during DST. That sounds particularly horrible. I always say that sympathy is as good a kind of attention as any… and you have mine, Cathie!

      On the up side, your story about Gabe is hilarious! That’s one aware kid!

      • I love that new rule, Beth! Does it go for the weeks pre-DST too? (I’m still on those you see and I’m already experiencing DST-stress… oh dear…) Could we say that it’s allowed to yell frequently&wholeheartedly all through March, aka ‘DST-month’? I think we can! 😉

  3. So here’s a comment from another DST hater: do you guys use the mnemonic device thingy ‘spring forward’? But ‘spring’ is not actually an English word is it? (I’m really starting to doubt myself now…) Anyway, I feel your pain, lots of it. In two weeks time (12 days actually) it’ll be our turn, dreading it already! 🙁

    • Yep! We spring forward and fall back. Spring is an English word. I think. I don’t really know that, but I feel like I should claim it as our own. I grew up singing church songs like Spring Up, Oh Well. And eating Spring Rolls (mmm… deep fried spring rolls) which are (likely Americanized) Chinese food… that doesn’t make “spring” Chinese, though, right? We also have springs in our beds (better for bouncing), and when we buy something we say we’re “springing for it.” Spring is deeply embedded. Totally English. 😉

      I could probably look up the etymology of “spring” but it’s so much more fun to guess!

      No idea how to spell mnemonic… I’m sure you got it right at least once. 😉

      • Okay, you’ve convinced me, ‘spring’ could not possibly be any more English! WHat I really meant to say was: ‘spring’ is not an English verb, is it? But as you could see, it kinda came out wrong… That’ll teach me for doing/trying to do fifteen things simultaneously! 😉 Anyway, what I forgot to leave out is that ‘spring’ is actually a Dutch verb (too) and it means ‘jump’, so that’s why we use the same mnemonic device as you guys do! (so glad to discover that I spelled ‘mnemonic’ correctly right away, yay for me! and is it just me or does that word remind anyone else of Johnny Depp too?)

        • Laughing out loud.

          Did you just say that mnemonic reminds you of Johnny Depp? Because that’s the best thing ever.

          I don’t think I can post in public which things remind me of Johnny Depp. Or which things Johnny Depp reminds me of. 😉 When we were at Disneyland, we ran into Captain Jack Sparrow. (Not the real Mr. Depp, but he was a really, really good Jack Sparrow.) “We” was me and Abby. And “ran into” was “waited in a ridiculously long line because I needed a picture with him.” And then I proceeded to completely humiliate my daughter. It was fabulous, and I have the photo which I look at fondly… and will probably now think “mnemonic” at. 😉

      • AWESOME!!! Yes, that’s completely&utterly what I meant when I said ‘it reminds me of Johnny Depp’! Ah, Jack Sparrow… Can’t type what I’d like to do to him in the comments section of your blog, because that would be totally inappropriate, right? Right? 😉 I wonder if there’s a ‘get your picture taken with Jack’ in Disney Paris? Hmmm, that’s only a 7-hour drive away! 🙂
        ps: show me your picture, make me jealous! 🙂

        • I don’t know if this has ever been resolved or if anyone will read this because it’s an old conversation, however, probably the reason you connect Johnny Depp and the word mnemonic is that in 1995 there was a movie called “Johnny Mnemonic” which actually stars Keanu Reeves. But there you go. Mnemonic = Johnny Depp.

          http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/

        • and this comment is because I forgot to check the box that says “email me if someone comments on this” just in case, you know, someone comments on this

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