Why Daylight Savings Time and 8:30 Church are NOT our friends...

I'll start with church. Going to church at 8:30 is painful. Pain is what I feel every Sunday morning when I wake up. Today was even worse as it really felt like 7:30 church. Last year we had church at 1:30. A lot of people don't like afternoon church but I do. Bob and I usually have date night on Saturday night. We don't always get home very early and enjoy sleeping in (now that we can) on Sunday morning. With afternoon church, we can get the kids bathed in the morning, have a nice breakfast and with proper planning not feel rushed to get out the door. 8:30 church is hard for us. It is challenging to fit in baths before the babysitter comes and I don't think the babysitter should be responsible for bathing the kids. So most Sundays now our kids go to church not having had a bath for a few days. Not my favorite thing but maybe I just need to accept this for now. It is also hard for us to wake up on Sunday morning because we have usually stayed up late on Saturday night trying to fit in any last minute Saturday chores and projects. So 8:30 church is not my favorite.

Things have been going well lately. Getting the kids to bed and getting them ready for school in the morning has been relatively easy. It has been dark here by 7 so we usually get the kids to bed before 7:30. They generally go to sleep right away and wake up on their own in the mornings. It is getting light by 6:45 in the morning when they need to be up and so it has been a very natural and good schedule for us. We didn't have a single tardy this past 6 weeks which is exceptional for us. The sun and the clocks were working in our favor.

The clocks and sun will not be working in our favor now. Tonight was by far the worst night that we've had getting the kids to bed in a long time. Parker ended up falling asleep on the hard floor with his "star blankies" as his pillow well after 8 o'clock. He lost some of his privileges for the week and cried a lot. We had issues with the other kids as well. It is likely to be rough in the morning as everyone went to bed "late" and will have to wake up in the dark. Hopefully the kids' internal clocks will switch over soon. Hopefully they will also get used to falling asleep in the light or we'll have to invest in black-out shades or something. Wish us luck! Daylight savings at this time of the year is not our friend.