I have been looking forward to daylight savings for weeks! Crazy, right? But honestly, for the past 9 years I have been running on a solid internal alarm clock that has gone off every morning by 6:45 at the very latest and lately, I have had a beast of a time getting up in the morning. Not only have the mornings been overcast and blah, but it has been so dark! I am a girl that needs the sun shining through closed blinds to get out of bed. I’m not chipper by any means, I struggle with fatigue, but as long as I’m awake, I see no need to stay in bed past 6:45. When I roll over and it is 6:52, I can’t lay there breathe deeply and say my morning prayers, NO, I need to jump out of bed like my pants are on fire to get showered and get my guys moving for school. Since I am not a coffee drinker, I NEED MY MORNING SHOWER!!

Last night as I got my boys all tucked into bed, I was excited to see that it was only 8:30, yay me! I could watch a movie, do some writing, and still get to bed early enough because, hey, I was getting an extra hour. Then it hit me, right in the head like a dope slap it hit me-if they are in bed early/on time tonight, they are going to get up way to early in the morning. No way! In a panic I got an idea, just like the Grinch, a wonderful(awful) idea. I jumped off the couch, walked down to the bedroom of my middle and youngest sons and declared that they could indeed have a sleepover even though we have church in the morning. Why? Because it’s daylight savings and we get an extra hour, I told them. Brilliant right? Get the children who were all settled down all riled up. Wait, it didn’t stop there… When my oldest got out of the shower I let him join them. 2 ice packs and 3 lost tempers later I announced that this was a bad idea and all my fault. The oldest went back to his bed(not enough light to read in his brothers room) the youngest slept on a bean bag on the floor, and the middle slept on the bottom bunk. The end? I wish!

Because since I had already failed so miserably at being a puppet-master,  of course my middle child would wake up with a hacking cough at midnight, 30 minutes after I had actually gone to bed. I tried to ignore it, tried to take deep breaths and go back to sleep, but his hacking turned into sobbing. So I went into the room, told him it was ok, gave him some water and went back to bed. Too easy, more hacking, more sobbing. Got back out of bed, got middle child, gave him a spoonful of honey and told him to get in my bed. Keep me up but don’t you dare wake your brother with your cough. And keep me up he did, hacking away. So again, I got up, for the 3rd time in 20 minutes, I stumbled to the kitchen, without putting my glasses on,( I was just too tired at this point), grabbed a chair, climbed up and squinted my eyes and found the lollipops. Yes, 12:30 in the morning and my no fail solution to coughing fits is a lollipop and tv, because nick jr plays kid shows 24 hours a day, thank you nick jr. Some time later I woke up and shut the tv off, middle child was sound asleep, not another cough escaped him, not a single one all day even.

At this point you may be wondering, what time did your kids actually wake up. Fail, giant fail. I heard my youngest child’s feet hit the floor at 6:21. I rushed out of my bed and ushered him back to his bed to snuggle. Child #2 rolled out of my bed at 6:30 and figured since it wasn’t really 6:30, it was ok to play. No buddy, it really is 6:30, you maybe not play until 7, yes this will be the real 7. I read to them in my bed until 7:01, when they left me to go play.

The only person who benefitted from my puppet master work was my oldest, who stayed up til 10:30 reading and didn’t get up until 8. He was very well rested today. Did I learn my lesson? I hope so, but I guess we will find out in the spring. Moral of the story, God is in control, not mama. Goodnight!

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