Tuesday, November 06, 2012

What I Really Want for Christmas...

...is to help build a school in Haiti.

First, go here and sign up for Pure Charity.

Now go here  (or go over to the sidebar!) and click the Fund This Project button. Watch the video. Read these blog posts:

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2012/11/06/the-legacy-project

and

http://sarahbessey.com/in-which-we-build-a-school/

Let's do it!

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Why I Hate Falling Back for DST

Six years ago was the last time I truly enjoyed falling back with the time change. Six years ago, I was pregnant with my first child and had absolutely no idea just how drastically my life would change on December 26, 2006. I certainly had no inkling that my hatred for moving the clocks back an hour in the fall would make me crazy at times.

No, I was ignorant to such things. I LOVED falling back in November (and October, before it was changed). I had an extra hour in my weekend! It seemed to make the weekend move more slowly, and that was always a welcome perception. I usually had no trouble sleeping in, but if I did wake up early on that Sunday morning, I was happy to see it was an hour earlier and I had more time to sleep! When I sang at church, I could stay up an hour later and not wish I had gone to bed sooner the night before. I didn't understand why my coworkers who were also parents would groan about the time change. I mean, I understood it in March because we all had to give back that hour we had so luxuriously been given in November and I would spend the next week or so trying to adjust my body to losing that hour of sleep. But why was it such a big deal in the fall?

And then I had a child.

I still maintain that whomever created the concept of Daylight Savings Time was definitely not someone who was in charge of small children.


Anyone who is rearing a small child knows that the child's circadian rhythm does not CARE what the time on the clock says. If that child has been waking up at 6:30 in the morning prior to falling back and "gaining" an hour, that child will awaken at 5:30 in the morning. The fact that the clock rudely reads 5:30 AM makes no difference to the child. They'll be wide awake and READY TO PLAY! Or eat. Or watch TV. Or whatever it is that child likes to do when s/he first gets up in the morning. Bring on the coffee, I say!

So tonight at 7:30 when I was getting our 2 children ready for bed, I realized that putting them to bed at 7:30 was really like putting them to bed at 6:30 and they would likely be awake before 5 am. And once my kids are awake, convincing them that it's a good idea to go back to sleep is darn near impossible.

We ended up ordering pizza (thank you, Domino's for your gluten-free crust!) and letting them watch Mickey Mouse. We effectively moved their bedtime up an hour, so hopefully they will sleep just a little longer in the morning!

Bring on the coffee!