Time Change Monday and the 8 Stages of Suck. The cost of Day Light Savings Time

They say it saves money. Really, Arizona seems to manage just fine without messing with the clocks on their walls a couple times a year. I personally have never seen any saving that I could attribute to our clock change whoever is saving here better be saving an awful lot of money because playing with the time space continuum in my house sure sucks.

Macy’s may save money on their electric bill but for all of us poor moms out there Spring Forward sucks. If you are a planner like me you try to prepare your kids for the time shift. Even as you do it you understand the futility of the efforts. You know Monday morning is coming the dreaded Monday… post time change. As if Monday morning did not suck enough already this is the mother of all Mondays. It may very well be the opposite of Christmas.

Alarm clock in sunlit spring field

1. BE PREPARED! An exercise in futility. In this phase you try to get your child to bed earlier than they think they should go to bed. You explain that the time has changed and answer the subsequent questions. Questions that can only be answered with…because someone thought this was a good idea. If you are fortunate enough to have kids like mine the questions do not stop there. You find yourself tempted to google the beginning of daylight savings time. But who has time for that since at this point you are still desperately trying to get kids to go to sleep early. So I end up giving some explanation about energy savings and using daylight instead of electricity and they ask but then what about when it is now dark in the morning for longer…I don’t know just get in bed.

2. GO TO SLEEP! Okay the kids are in bed now hurry up and go to sleep. They can’t sleep ah geez lets read another story lets lie in the dark. Nope no sleep good thing we hurried up to achieve this. The kids are just lying there trying to figure out why settlers thought that they should change the time on their watches to save some money on kerosene. They don’t get it they just know they are wide awake still and I know they are going to be miserable and CRANKY tomorrow.

3. BEEP BEEP BEEP! Time to wake up. Ready yourself for battle. At this point you ponder the idea of keeping the kids home for the day. You search your memory for the last time you heard them sniffle and start thinking that they really just need their rest. SIGH…they need to go to school. It is the responsible thing to do and you alas are the parent. Drag yourself out of bed.

4. WAKE UP! They don’t even hear you when you try the normal waking routine. You know that wake up routine on a normal Monday that is met with grunts, groans, and whines. Well this is no average Monday this is TIME CHANGE MONDAY. No grunts, no groans no acknowledgement at all. Shake some more…still sleeping like a rock. Alright times up blankets thrown off, lights switched on, and if you have kids like mine you may just have had to resort to physically dragging them out of the bed.

5. THE WHINING! Now the sleeping angel is a woken monster. The growling and whining is enough to make you once again revisit the idea of keeping them home from school. just til that time change passes I mean those sniffles I heard…yeah yeah sniffles.

6. HURRY UP!! Precious moments are slipping by. Eat! wake up look alive and eat! Get your shoes on…NOW! Hurry get your back pack! Why are your shoes not on?! Get your lunch! Brush your teeth…no never mind no time for that! Get your Freaking shoes on!get in the car!!! Hurry. The snails pace is not going to get you to school on time. The whole time You are thinking there is no way we are ending up with a tardy over this. I should have just let them stay home if it was going to go down like this!!

Tired schoolboy sleeping on book in classroom

7. HOMEWORK & DINNER. Not yet mom…it’s still early! Do I have to? I’m so tired…I can’t. Maybe now should just be bed time. a quick snack and off to bed. No, they won’t go for that. Rats a few more hours of whining to endure. whining through dinner whining through homework and just maybe a teary meltdown if you are lucky.

8. TIME FOR BED. Hooray Time Change Monday is over. But Mom it is still early. It just got dark. I don’t want to go to bed early. But its not early honey we changed the time remember…oh good this conversation again. So again with the money savings and visions of settlers surviving by use of daylight. But at least tonight they should be tired enough to fall asleep.

Finally…time change Monday is over. At least Time change Tuesday is only 50% as bad as time change Monday.

Whew survived another year.

Maybe next year we can all just agree to switch to LED and save enough money to convince some reasonable soul to just end the madness! Maybe I should write my congressman zzz…