The Standard Time Blues...

There is no way anyone can convince me that there was only ONE extra hour in the day today. Please tell me I am not alone in feeling like this day has taken forEVER to wind its way down. I recall my "set your clock back"'s of the past with such loving fondness. That extra hour to sleep. To dream. To stay cozy and warm underneath covers and then lounge the day away, delighted that there was one extra hour separating me from the work week, thinking, "Hey, I might even have time to do my nails tonight." The first Monday of standard time almost alway found me with freshly painted nails and a smile on my face, what with all the extra energy you can accumulate from an extra hour of sleep and the subsequent lounging.

Yeah. That was then. This year, switching to standard time has been kicking my ass since about 6:30 this morning. Ethan, of course, thought it was 7:30 and therefore time to wake up. Someone needs to find a way to explain this whole "standard time" thing to a toddler. Seriously, that could change the course of mankind. If I could change one little teensy thing about my little man it would be that he would love sleep as much as his Mama does.

Fortunately, Husband knows that a Sarah who wakes up at 6:30 in the morning is a miserable Sarah all. day. long & so he did me the favor of getting up with our little standard-time challenged child. And I got to sleep a bit longer. And that should have been enough, because it's not as though I sleep until noon like a hung-over college student (anymore). But for some reason, I have found myself watching the clock all day today, willing the hours to go by so I can crawl back into bed.

There is comfort in numbers, though. I noticed an inordinate number of haggard looking parents and their fully-rested and energeized toddlers at Starbucks this morning. Some of them seemed to have been awake even longer than us, and it occurred to me that we're kind of spoiled that E often sleeps until almost 8am. DearGod, if he was used to waking up at 6am, he'd have been up at 5am this morning and I would have had to throw myself screaming from the window.

Perhaps had I been doing something fun, like shopping, getting a massage, or playing with Ethan and Husband, I wouldn't have been so keen for the day to be over. But I wasn't. I was pouring over boxes and bags of kitchen stuff that have been packed up in our living room and dining room for the past six weeks. What had come out, had to go back in; only into entirely new spaces. I spent a lot of time sitting on the kitchen floor (the pretty, pretty tile floor) trying to figure out how to unpack the old kitchen into the new one. Several times I contemplated walking outside, putting an "Open House" sign up on our lawn and just selling the whole damn house while Husband and Ethan were out. It seemed like a less daunting task.

Six bags of trash and three boxes for Goodwill later, everything left over is snugly in its new home. There are no cardboard boxes in my living room. I can actually see the festive fall centerpiece on my dining room table (let me tell you, this is the first year I have even attempted to get my Martha on by making a seasonal centerpiece, and I was none too pleased to have it covered up for half of autumn).

Husband reported to me when he and Ethan returned from visiting Grandma that Ethan had only napped for about 30 minutes, at 10am. So no luck pushing that nap any later in the hopes that tonight would go easily for us. We had to have dinner at 5:30 to keep Ethan from melting down (even after many tasty snacks). We had to bathe him at 6 and put him to bed at 6:30. Last year, none of this mattered. He wasn't on a schedule yet and bedtime was simply the beginning of his longest nap in a 24 hour stretch. This year, it was almost as though the clock in his body was setting off alarms and we were not going to be allowed to ignore them.

Apparently, I will be getting up at 6:30am tomorrow, so perhaps I should stop this aimless rambling and go to bed. But first, I think I'll do my nails...