Daylight Savings Sucks

Warning: I’m in a bad mood. This is probably going to be a grumpy, whiny rant so if you’re looking for rainbows and sunshine, click away. I blame daylight savings time. I remember when I first discovered what a joke the supposed “extra hour” of sleep is for people with babies.

And when people say they wish there were more hours in the day, I’m guessing they do not mean the cold, pre-dawn, pre-coffee hours or the long, cold, now-dark hours between 4 and 7 p.m. At least not when you have to share those hours with 2 loud, whiny, and often damp children age 4 and under. (Some of whom like to eat crayons.)

My 20 m.o. is back to his newborn ways. He’s waking up at 4:30 a.m. wailing and thrashing. Only now he can talk, so his wailing sounds like this: “Mommeeeee! Daddeeeee! Mommeeeee! Daddeeeee!” and on and on until you go get him. And we do, if only so our 4 y.o. doesn’t wake up and come bounding out of his room to get in on the action.

Sometimes, Daddy can get the baby back to sleep in the rocking chair, and sometimes against my better judgment, I let him get into our bed. But usually he’s wet and frequently stinky. (What the HELL?! Huggies Overnite diapers worked like a charm with my firstborn.) And if you change his diaper, then he’s wide awake and up for a game of “Let’s turn Mommy’s nostrils inside out” or “Pinch the skin on Daddy’s neck really, really hard.”

Some nights it’s like musical beds. C. may fall asleep in Miles’ bed or in Riley’s chair. If Miles comes into our room because he had a bad dream, I might move to his room because C. is snoring and Miles tends to kick me in the ribs. You never know where you’re going to wake up, or with whom. It’s like college only everything smells like pee instead of beer.

(True story: in college my freshman roommate was on the soccer team. One night after a raging soccer party her teammate next door got up to go to the bathroom and mistook our room for hers when she came back. So I woke up to find a drunk girl trying to climb into bed with me. Of course my roommate, who was also drunk, found this hysterical.)

And the getting-dark-early part of daylight savings? Is a TERRIBLE thing. This means that after Riley wakes up from his nap and Miles has been forced to play quietly by himself while I work, we can’t go outside and play, but have to remain cooped up in the house. Or else brave the rush-hour traffic to kill time at Target or the mall or other germ-infested places where you’ll end up spending money for no reason. I hate this time of year.

Aren’t you glad you stopped by? ;)

LINK O’ THE WEEK: Speaking of drunk bed-hoppers, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's "Open Letter to Charlie Sheen" is hilarious. I really do feel sorry for his 1-y.o. twins, though. Hopefully their extended family has a clue.