Daylight Savings

Michael and I are in constant amazement over our boys. They have the same upbringing, same rules, same parents, and yet they are so different. One area that their differences are really shown is how they get up in the morning. Jake, being the night-owl, is content to sleep in as long as we let him. Chris, on the other hand, is a morning glory. He even jokes that sleeping in for him is waking up at 6:35 instead of his usual 6:30. His natural clock just wakes him up at the same time every morning. He wakes up happy, and ready for his day. (Oh how I wish I was like that!)

Since we had Daylight Savings this past weekend, Chris' natural 6:30 is now 7:30. With his school schedule, waking up at 7:30 still allows him plenty of time to start his day. Monday morning, when my alarm clock went off at 7:00, I immediately went into Jake's room to start my morning ritual of nagging him until he's up and getting ready for school. Chris is in the other room, sound asleep the whole time. 7:30 rolls around, and Chris woke up, got dressed, and went downstairs to eat his breakfast while watching cartoons before school. Jake, at this point, had also gone downstairs to catch half a show before leaving for school. Seeing Jake, Chris was surprised, "What are you doing up at 6:30?"

"It's 7:30." Jake replied.

"Mom!" traveled all the way up the stairs and down the hall to my room. He was genuinely concerned that he had overslept! I explained to Chris that twice a year, we change our clocks. In the fall, we set it back and hour, and in the spring, we set it ahead an hour.

"Why do we have to do that?! When did you make that rule?" he inquired.

"Everybody does it" I answered him, with a chuckle at the thought that I would have come up with a rule that would take an hour of sleep away from the precious little I get already.

"Even at school?" he asked.

"Even at school." I answered. "It's a law that everybody has to change clocks. You'll like that it doesn't get dark as quick in the evenings now."

Those of you who know Christopher well, know that he is a man of few words, and calls it like he sees it. In response to my hopes that the prospect of more daylight after school would somehow make that hour shift easier for him, he simply said:

"Well, that's the dumbest law I ever heard of!" and went back to his cartoon.