DST has us all like...ugh

It's a one hour time change. One. Hour.

And yet it has us all feeling so tired!

This past week no one has been waking up for school by themselves (thank goodness for alarms (for the parents) and parents (for the children who have been consistently sleeping through their alarms)). Early morning choir practices have been a joke, but on the plus side we now know that the girls can complete their morning routine (aside from piano practicing) and be out the door in less than five minutes.

On Thursday, as mentioned, Andrew and I went to a banquet and the kids (save Alexander) went to Auntie Josie's house. Zoë was particularly excited about this and kept checking with me throughout the day that she was going to be included in this adventure. "Am I going to Auntie Josie's house, too? I'm going to Auntie Josie's house, too, right?"

Rachel had the option to go to a friend's "late night" instead, but she surprised me by choosing to go to Auntie Josie's house. Miriam was thrilled because when I told her that Rachel might go elsewhere she threw herself on the couch and lamented about how Rachel is "always choosing to spend time with her friends and when she has friends come over she never wants to play anything fun like dress ups or dollhouse anymore..."

So I had to tell her that that's because those things seem like less fun as you get older.

"But I'm getting older, too, and they're still fun for me!" Miriam objected.

Yes, but you're just-turned-eight and Rachel is going-on-elevensies. She's a budding preteen.

But in this case she chose to hang out with her family instead of her friends and Miriam was elated.


They had such a splendid time at Josie's house that when I picked them up Zoë said, "Why are you getting us?" and kept repeating similar questions all the way home. "Why did you even pick us up? Why do we have to go home? Why can't we stay at Auntie Josie's? Can't you go back to your party? Why is it bedtime? It's not dark. Oh, yes it is. It is dark, but it's not bedtime. Can I sleep at Auntie Josie's house? Why not? Why did you even pick us up?"

The only reason she ever gets as talkative as that is when she's tired.

She also spontaneously piped up from the backseat, "Oh! I'm tootin'!"

And then, a few minutes later, "I'm tootin' again!"

When we got the children home, Zoë went to bed without a fight and Miriam opted out of reading time in order to go directly to bed (both unusual choices for those children). Rachel took the reading time we offered her, and escaped quietly into her bedroom.

Benjamin tried to convince me that he also needed reading time. I was nursing the baby on the couch, which is just outside Benjamin's bedroom. He must have thought he was standing in his doorway to plead his case, but he wasn't.

"Mom, please, please, please!" he begged. "Just let me stay up! I just need some reading time. I'm not tired at all. Please, Mom, please!"

"Sorry, honey," I said. "You are tired and it's already well past 'lights out' time for you."

"But, Mom! I never get to read before bed anymore..."

"But, Ben! That's why we spent the afternoon reading together!"

"But I need to read before bed. Mom, this isn't a want!"

"Sorry, buddy. That is a want. What you need is to go to bed. No. No. No. No. Ben.Ben.Ben. Ben, get into bed. I'm not going to talk about this anymore. You have my answer. It's time for bed."

Upon realizing the last of his hope had been brutally crushed by his despotic mother, he tearfully turned to flee into his bedroom, hoist himself into his bed, where he no doubt planned to collapse most dramatically. Unfortunately, he wasn't standing in his doorway so instead of running into his room he crashed straight into the wall.

Which was not funny.

Not one bit.

At least, it wasn't funny that it happened to my sweet little boy, but you have to admit that situationally it was a little humorous, so swallowing my laughter, I crooned, "Oh, sweetie. I'm so sorry. How is your nose?" And then I did my best to convince him that he really was tired (you just ran into a wall, kid) and that a good night's sleep would cure all ails (my kids are totally going to be convinced that there's nothing a good night's rest and a drink of water can't fix).

"What's going on?" Andrew said, using his best daddy-means-business voice, as he came up the stairs.

"Oh, nothing now," I told him. "Everyone is in bed. Benjamin was just trying to convince me that he needed reading time and when I told him no he turned to run into his room and instead ran straight into the wall..."

My story was interrupted by Andrew laughing so loudly he startled the baby. So I shushed him, he returned downstairs, I finished feeding Alexander and put him to bed still awake and cooing (knowing that he'd settle down to sleep on his own because every now and then there's a child born into the world that does that (may the odds be ever in your favour (they certainly weren't in mine))), and then made my lullaby rounds.

This is how I found Benjamin sobbing in his bed.

"Oh, buddy. What's wrong, sweet boy?" I asked, reaching into the top bunk to pat his back.

"It is not funny that I ran into the wall!" he wailed.

"I know," I said. "I know. It's not."

"THEN WHY DID DAD LAUGH?" he demanded.

I heard Andrew sneaking back upstairs so I answered conspicuously, "I don't know why Daddy laughed at you. That wasn't very nice. I will send him in to apologize."

And then I sent Andrew in to apologize. But do you know what he did? He threw me under the bus.

"Sorry I laughed, but it was kind of funny," he halfway apologized to his broken-hearted child. "Mom laughed, too."

"DID NOT!" I called from the living room.

"She laughed inside," Andrew told Benjamin and then, despite not being remotely comforting he somehow managed to calm Benjamin down. I think he told him that although it wasn't funny that he, Benjamin, walked into the wall, walking into walls is, generally speaking, considered humorous.

"What did you do that for?" I asked Andrew when he joined me on the couch.

"Do what?" Andrew asked.

"You can't turn the good cop into the bad cop, too. Like, how comforting is that?" I asked. Throwing on my this-is-how-you-sound voice, I said, "'Don't worry, son. It wasn't just me laughing at you. Everyone was laughing at you.'"

"If I'm the bad cop, I can do anything I want," Andrew said. "And you did laugh."

"I did not. I very purposely refrained."

"You had a face."

"Not for Benjamin! I did nothing but ooze sympathy!"

"You had a face when you told me."

Sure, because it was kind of funny. But, come on.

Andrew was pretty tired himself that evening and kept saying ridiculous things. For example, he told me that his friend Aaron had told him that you can make "chicken beef." Ew. What he meant to say was "orange chicken, but with beef." (Andrew doesn't like chicken).

And when we were reciting scriptures on the way home (so we could get our exhausted brood into bed faster once we arrived home), I wondered if we'd started a particular paragraph of The Living Christ, which we're memorizing this year.

"Yes," Andrew said. "We just started memorizing it tomorrow."

He definitely meant yesterday.

Why do we do this to ourselves two times a year? Perhaps because sometimes we're not so thrown off by it. For whatever reason daylight savings time really threw us for a loop this time around!