It’s been several years since I’ve been excited to “gain an hour.” Gone are the days of staying out that extra hour at the bar because I know I’ll get to snooze through the time change. Now I’m angling to get into bed as soon as possible on a Saturday night because only extra super early morning chaos can await me on the first Sunday after Daylight Saving Time ends.

By some miracle, my youngest had just started to sleep until about 5:45am again after waking up at or before 5am for months on end. Here we go messing that up for moms everywhere with our silly Daylight Saving Time. I still have to explain this to people who aren’t the ones getting up with the baby. Her normal wakeup time is 5:30am. New 5:30am is old 6:30am. Old 5:30am is new 4:30am! But it will be light earlier? Yeah, that’s not a good thing. And as it is she doesn’t care if it’s dark or light, she’s up like clockwork well before 6am. And babies don’t tell time. I’m totally screwed. My husband says stop being pessimistic. Well, who is the one getting up earlier than any farmers? I think I have a right to expect the worst. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised and they’ll adjust quickly.

Like “gaining an hour,” lots of things take on new meaning once you have kids – here are the few others that I’ve been pondering.

Date Night
I love (how do you type sarcasm?) listening to couples with no kids talk about date night. “Oh, we had a date night on Saturday night.” or “I’m so excited that tonight is date night!” For us, date night involves booking a babysitter weeks in advance, forking out a well deserved $15 an hour on top of whatever the date costs and not getting to sleep in even though we were out later than normal. Spontaneous date night is the ultimate oxymoron. How I wish I’d realized that every night is a date night with no kids.

Work
Plain and simple, my work is nothing compared to what I do at home. I’m never, ever off the clock at home. Not in the middle of the night, not in the middle of going Number Two (more on that to come). I love my job and I love getting out of the house to go to it. I don’t call it work, I call it a mini vacation from my home life. It’s so quiet there! And don’t even get me started on working from home. I could kiss the person who invented this wonderful thing. I get to take my kids to school, come back home, put my pajamas back on and work from the comfort of my own home? I don’t even care how slammed I am with work, just being alone in my own home is a magical gift from the heavens.

Number Two
I never even knew how much I should have appreciated going #2. When you have kids, you have to sacrifice some things because there just aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s a shame that I seem to have chosen one of the most basic bodily functions. I might be giving you way too much information, but let’s just say I hardly ever get to go when I actually really need to and that is not so great for your regularity. Oh to go #2 like a 25 year old again – on MY schedule.

Vacation
As I’ve said before, traveling with kids isn’t exactly a vacation. My idea of a dream vacation involves much less ‘on the go’ activity and much more hotel lounging, reading and sleeping. And in my dreams, I’m vacationing alone. Sorry husband and kids – mama needs some “me” time.

So there you have it – My vote is we never change the time and just leave my kids’ sleep habits well enough alone. Or at least if we’re going to have to change the clocks back, let’s not combine it with Halloween weekend when the kids are already a combination of exhausted from staying up trick or treating and totally hopped up on candy. Or maybe it’s better to just get it all over with at once!