I have always loved the Autumn time change. I am sure I didn’t really notice it as a child, but started to appreciate it more in my teens and early twenties.  Once I started going to the bars, though, it definitely started to mean something.  It was another whole HOUR of drinking, after all. It doesn’t matter that we could have continued at drink anyone’s place after the bar closed, this night was somehow better.  And more expensive.  As I got even older, I started to love the bonus hour of sleep more, and had pretty much stopped going to the bar after midnight anyway.  Sleep won.

When we had the little people, I started to have mixed feelings on the time changes in general.  Woo was born the night that we sprang forward, so that time change will always be special regardless of the havoc it always creates with my sleep, or the interesting things that it has done to us trying to overcome it’s effects on the lil ones and their schedules.  We have never successfully adapted, never gone without some really crazy effects like breakfast at four in the morning, napping strikes and all out crib parties at 3:00am.  Why is one hour so hard for us all to cope with?

This year is going to be different, I can feel it. It’s not that we’ve talked about the time change, or that I’ve devised a strategy that will help us deal with it.  Today even started ominously, with Woo waking before six for cuddles.  I groaned and moved into his bed, knowing that it could be the start of another long day for us.  Then it happened.  I was able to get him back to sleep, and fell back to sleep myself.  When I woke and looked at my watch, it was almost eight!  The magical day that I’ve only dreamed of thus far was upon us – the littles slept in!!  Seeing that they were already an hour behind their usual schedule, I figured that we would roll with it, and move the time change ahead a day.

We are a pretty well scheduled family and it works well for all of us most days.  Today we were able to keep their regular day, and they barely noticed.  Goose was a little over-tired for her nap, but only when she could not fall to sleep because she had been goofing off too much with her brother.  At the end of the day, they both knew that they were staying up late and felt that they were getting a treat.  When they fell asleep, they fell asleep at their corrected “normal” times.  I am going to sleep tonight knowing the I gain an hour sleep tonight, and tomorrow is my sleep-in day.

I think this just might work, and we will beat the time change for once.

We’re so doomed.