Why We REALLY Do Daylight Saving Time

According to Facebook, I'm apparently one of the only people ever who enjoys the extra hour of sleep I got last night. Too many people with kids and babies were complaining about sleep schedules and kids waking up too early. Not me. I reveled in that extra hour. I had my coffee in bed, read my first issue of Entertainment Weekly while I waited for my shower to heat up, and then made it to my parents house in just enough time to head out to breakfast with my aunts and dad and grandma. Yes...BREAKFAST.

So Daylight Savings hour is a-okay with me. And here it is, like 9:30 p.m., and I'm almost half asleep. However, I think that has less to do with the time change and more to do with the fact that I spent like 9 hours with kids all weekend. Kids. Are. Exhausting. And they never stop talking or moving. Allow me to paint a picture for you.

I took my 6 and 3 year-old nieces for the afternoon on Saturday so my sister could tend to some videography projects. We went to the mall so Annabelle (6) could get her haircut. I was all "Awww, this is adorable!" She sat and got her haircut like a little bunny. Quiet. Still. That calmness lasted, oh, 6 minutes. Then Eve (3) had to go to the bathroom. She "couldn't hold it, Phawin" so we had to RUN. I don't understand the rules of kids in bathrooms, so I was all nervous and freaking out about germs and just wanted to get out of there. It was probably a 20 minute process.

Then I thought I'd do some shopping of my own (I'm still hilariously naive at this point). So I grabbed some candy for the girls to distract them while I looked. We walked into one store and I browsed for about 3 minutes before Eve had a $150 white sweater stuck to her sticky fingers. We had to make an exit. I grabbed a coffee and sat while the girls ran around the play area. It was lovely. Annabelle and Eve were having a ball, but the shrieking and punching from the other kids wore us all down. I had scheduled "Play Time" to take 2 hours, but we made it about 15 minutes.

And then came more requests for candy. Gee, thanks, MALL for all the readily available candy machines that only take quarters without even ONE change machine in sight. Eventually, we compromised and had ice cream. I have no clue what happens between a spoon dipping into a bowl of ice cream, and a spoon going into a mouth, but with kids, that very short journey results in a face, hands, hair, and (inexplicably) a stomach covered in ice cream. I tried to mop them off, but decided it was a lost cause.

After more wandering around - NOT shopping - I decided our next best move was Target. The girls' legs were tired, and I couldn't come up with anymore creative ideas to keep them from running away from me every 3 seconds. So we went into Target, I plopped them in the cart, and went to pick out some new pj's for myself. It was a beautiful 20 minute respite. I found socks, pajamas, and some other non-essentials. But then I got cocky.

Rejuvenated after the 20-minute break, I praised the girls and told them they could each pick out a small toy as a reward. Mistake alert! We went to the toy section, and Eve found a toy pretty quickly. She was actually more into the bottle of water I had given her a half-hour ago. But Annabelle wanted EVERYTHING. She wanted a karaoke Barbie, a small dog that barked incessantly, and accessories for a La La Loopsy doll (whatever the eff that is). I said "Annabelle, you need to pick a SMALL toy." Because I'm not made out of money, and I also thought all those toys were extra lame. "You can remember all the big things you want and ask Santa for them." I don't know what parents do between January and November, because Santa is a Godsend. Then she started getting overwhelmed and frustrated. There were simply TOO MANY CHOICES. She ended up with some terribly boring little water thing that played terrible music. I felt bad because I knew how dumb it was, but she LOVED it.

We checked out, and I texted my brother and sister - who had been working on their video for a blissful 4 child-free hours - and asked "Can we come back yet?" Then Eve, who had been chugging that water, had to go to the bathroom again and I just couldn't do it. I waited for a response for approx 45 seconds before just writing back "I don't care. We are coming home."

As we strolled out to the parking lot, I felt like I had really achieved something. The girls were happy and chatty and funny again. We walked up to my sister's van and I tried to unlock the doors. Nothing. Did I grab the wrong set? Were the batteries in the key fob dead? NO. Annabelle and Eve were already getting antsy and I was beyond flustered. I tried to open the doors, force the sliding doors to open, but nothing. And then I realized it was the wrong car. We looked around the lot and saw 5 vans that look exactly like my sisters car. We had to go to each one before we found the right one.

The trip TO the mall was all about singing to the radio and laughing and I was answering the 700 questions they had very thouroughly. The ride HOME from the mall was silent. No radio, no talking allowed.

That was yesterday, and I'm still recovering. Even though I spent the day with them again today, nothing could come close to the stress and energy-suck that happened yesterday. I gotta hand it to you parents - it's so much harder than you make it look.

But that still doesn't give you any right to complain about getting an extra hour last night. It's people like me who rely on that hour to recover from hanging out with your kids for the day.

Alright, let's get out there and pwn this week!