I Love Daylight Savings Time, When It Ends

This past weekend I did a bad, bad thing. (Cue Chris Isaak… did a bad, bad thing… did a bad, bad thing)  Maybe not so much bad, as sneaky.

When it came time to turn our clocks back an hour, I simply didn’t.

Oh sure the clocks on our computers and phones turned back automatically, but my younger kids pay no attention to those. First of all they have no phones. Secondly, I am one of those mean parents who strictly restricts access to screen time, so if they have nothing to do for school on the computer then they simply aren’t on the computer. The only time they even look at the wall clocks in our home is when I say it is bedtime and they are protesting, doing their latest techniques in stalling, and whining about how they always have to brush their teeth. According to them, this is just another way in which I mean, making them perform daily hygiene.

I didn’t plan this subterfuge in advance. I was just lazy Sunday morning when I woke up. Then I forgot about it. Then as my cranky and chronically overtired children began whining during the evening I had a thought, so brilliant that I think a light bulb actually appeared over my head.  Huh, I thought, according to the clocks it is almost bedtime.

I texted my two teenagers, who were in the same room as all of us but were busily checking their phones to see what all 3,000 of their Facebook friends were currently doing, and I told them not to say anything about the time change.

They both texted me back asking if we could turn the clock in the other direction so the babies, yes we still call them that, could go to bed even an hour earlier. Oh, I will admit that I was more than a little tempted.

The whining about tooth-brushing, and needing drinks, and not being able to find the pajamas they wanted, and turning on the ceiling fan, and off the ceiling fan, and listening to one more very important thing that can’t possibly wait until the next day, all of those stall tactics did not annoy me nearly as much. I knew that we were ahead of schedule.

So the elementary school kids went to bed promptly at 8:30, which according to not-daylight-savings time was now 7:30. They fell asleep right away. And they did not get up until I had to wake them at 6:00 the following morning.

It is now Thursday. I still haven’t changed the clocks.

Yes, they know that there was a time change. At times they have seemed a little bit confused. Yet none of them have suggested that bedtime is then happening an hour too early.

On the one hand I maybe should feel bad about duping them. But on the other hand, an HOUR MORE OF SLEEP for them and an HOUR LESS OF CRANKY for me.

I don’t have to tell you which one wins.

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