One Spring Forward, Two Left Back

By Megan

So, I abandoned my children.

Left ’em back in Central Standard Time last weekend (and I don’t even miss ’em!)

Prior to the big change-over to CDT, our family’s daily life had become a stubborn, gnarled hair ball of hard schedule items and all of those equally important but softer to-dos that had to be stuffed in between or wrapped around them. The kids were waking up before six, which meant Peabody’s bedtime fell smack dab in the middle of Al gettin’ home from work. Dinner got held up while we put the boy to bed, and had become so rushed and tense that I spent the two hours afterward tryin’ to coax my food out of a dense little clod wadded up in my gullet and on down into my stomach in time to get in the bed. Al and I both were constantly having to stay on Bean to EAT! EAT LIKE THE WIND! EAT LIKE KATY THE SNOWBLOWER – JUST DON’T STOP EATIN’ TIL IT’S GONE! and then just as she sleepily-and-frustratedly stuffed the final bite of dinner into her mouth, Al would grab her up, her still chewing, and rush upstairs, bark her through teeth-brushing and final-pottying and toss that child into bed like a hot potato that was about to set fire to his fingertips.

Not only that, but thanks to all the insanely-early rising and Bean’s half-day preschool hours, Peabody was often well beyond his napping window by the time we got big sister picked up and lunch eaten, which led to missed naps which led to the kids needing a confoundingly early bedtime, which forced the family to eat dinner in several shifts and led to a subsquently even-more-stupifying early wake-up the next morning. That vicious cycle mercilessly chased its own tail for the entirety of winter, and finally resulted in the occupants of FriedOkra Manor eating this Thursday’s pot roast and potatoes for last Monday’s breakfast and beginning March while everybody else in the world was still enjoyin’ the second week of February.

We were leprechauns for Valentines Day, for pete’s sake!

But the good news is, since that left me with Spring Break all to myself, I had some time to think, and I figured out a sneaky solution: If I could just leave my kids behind, I could allow the rest of the world to catch up.

(And by the way, Happy Belated March to the rest of you. It’s been a great month so far, if a little lonely.)

So on the Sunday after Daylight Savings Time went into effect, I didn’t change a single thing about the kids’ schedule. They dutifully woke up at 6 AM, but to everyone else it was SEVEN (which was nothing short of a water-to-wine miracle in my household). We fed ’em lunch at around 12:45 PM our time, but to them? IT WAS BEFORE NOON! And their bedtime stuck at 7 PM, which was now our 8 PM.

You see? We left those children right where they were standing and gently tugged the time zone and everybody else in it forward under their stubborn little feet. And now, as if by magic, overnight even, I have two unsuspecting kids who rise a hour later, enjoy calm and leisurely meals and perfectly-timed naps, plus they get more time to enjoy extra daylight in the evenings.

It’s worked so well, in fact, that I’ve already confidently called Santa to tell him to disregard the letter I sent with our revised family calendar and a plea to bring eggs and jelly beans for Christmas.

Megan also blogs at FriedOkra (in the mornings, while the kids are still sleeping, hallelujah and amen!)