Spring Forward?
The day we change the clocks – Spring Forward – is always the worst day of the year for me. Or rather the first day I have to be anywhere after we spring forward.
Add in a 4 1/2 year old who is attending preschool, and you can magnify that by a factor of ten, which this morning included about three drop-down-to-the-floor, scream-and-cry jags. “I’m just tired Mama!” she finally shouted. Yes, I was too. I’m always shocked by how we can all expect to suddenly have our days start an hour earlier and not be affected. The gift of a young child is the clarity with which they will state the obvious.
What can we do? I wish we could break it down into smaller chunks and do 15 minutes a week, but I’m sure most people would say that’s impractical and it’s better to just get it over with it, like you would yank off a band-aid.
But I suppose one could do that oneself, 15 minutes a week, with just the time one woke up.
Another idea, and the natural-time approach, would be to just follow the light. Wake up earlier with the sun, and you will naturally be awake more in the summer and less in the winter. But that too will have its problems if you are at a 9-5 job or at school.
Our solution over the weekend (which only helped somewhat) was to be out in natural daylight as much as possible, to help us remember that really we are in the same time, and nothing has changed.
And I suppose a more gentle approach – walking forward, a step at a time, rather than springing – would be changing our expectations for ourselves on the first day.