Sometimes you just have to make it about the little things. Like today, for instance: My neighbor complimented the shirt I was wearing, and I confessed that because I hadn't gotten around to taking a shower this morning, I decided to wear something more than just a T-shirt, to make up for it. I can say this to my neighbor because we often greet each other in our PJ pants (or the equivalent) in the middle of the day when I go out to pick up my mail or take out the garbage. I like this about her. I like that one day her daughter came over to play. In her nightgown. Not that she constantly sends her children out into the world dressed like it's a slumber party. But she knows that there are Those Days. She doesn't sweat them. It's a good quality to have in a next door neighbor. It's a quality I emulate well, I think.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
it's about Time
What I used to love about changing from Daylight Savings Time back to ‘Regular’ time was the extra hour gained. For a week or so, I could feel like I was sleeping in every morning. Sadly, that changed when I had children old enough to sleep in their own beds.
Time is not something children understand. They refuse to be governed by it, and they flaunt their ability to be wholly unattached to the hands of the clock, mostly by refusing to stay in bed an hour later in the morning after the time changes. So much for sleeping in. What you end up with is a child standing at your bed at 6 a.m. demanding breakfast.
Of course, sometime in between jr. high and high school this will change. The “Fall Back” will come to mean something important to them. At least at an intellectual level, because children like to make up for the lack of sleeping-in done in their early years with an over-abundance of sleeping-in during their adolescent years. Time change or no time change, every day is a new opportunity to sleep late. This fact of life does not comfort me.
There are a few logistical matters to take care of with a time change. I still need to change the clock in our bathroom. We changed the clock in the kitchen right away so we wouldn’t be late, or early I guess (yea, fat chance), to church on Sunday. And actually, there are a few of our clocks still on Eastern Daylight Time. Yes. I know. I have a tendency towards nostalgia and sentimentality and despite the stories I could tell you of busy mom trying to get her house unpacked and ordered, it’s a little bit embarrassing, and may be a wee bit pathetic. But I will tell you nothing, if not the Truth.
Our cell phones access some almighty satellite in the sky that Knows, so they are always in the right time zone. Ben changed our alarm clock a few weeks ago from EDT, because he was tired of calculating when exactly he needed to wake up. “Let’s see. Five-thirty a.m. in Utah is seven-thirty in New York. It says eleven o’clock right now, and that means the majority of people here think it’s nine – bed time in an hour and a half, that gives me seven hours of sleep. Good deal.” I personally don’t see what the problem was but then again, I’m not the one getting up before 6 a.m. I mean, I wasn’t, until this past Sunday. Anyway, the alarm clock was changed and changed again.
So now’s the time. As long as I’m changing the time on my clocks, I may as well situate everybody here, well and good, in Mountain Standard time. At least most of my clocks. For a few months.
Time is not something children understand. They refuse to be governed by it, and they flaunt their ability to be wholly unattached to the hands of the clock, mostly by refusing to stay in bed an hour later in the morning after the time changes. So much for sleeping in. What you end up with is a child standing at your bed at 6 a.m. demanding breakfast.
Of course, sometime in between jr. high and high school this will change. The “Fall Back” will come to mean something important to them. At least at an intellectual level, because children like to make up for the lack of sleeping-in done in their early years with an over-abundance of sleeping-in during their adolescent years. Time change or no time change, every day is a new opportunity to sleep late. This fact of life does not comfort me.
There are a few logistical matters to take care of with a time change. I still need to change the clock in our bathroom. We changed the clock in the kitchen right away so we wouldn’t be late, or early I guess (yea, fat chance), to church on Sunday. And actually, there are a few of our clocks still on Eastern Daylight Time. Yes. I know. I have a tendency towards nostalgia and sentimentality and despite the stories I could tell you of busy mom trying to get her house unpacked and ordered, it’s a little bit embarrassing, and may be a wee bit pathetic. But I will tell you nothing, if not the Truth.
Our cell phones access some almighty satellite in the sky that Knows, so they are always in the right time zone. Ben changed our alarm clock a few weeks ago from EDT, because he was tired of calculating when exactly he needed to wake up. “Let’s see. Five-thirty a.m. in Utah is seven-thirty in New York. It says eleven o’clock right now, and that means the majority of people here think it’s nine – bed time in an hour and a half, that gives me seven hours of sleep. Good deal.” I personally don’t see what the problem was but then again, I’m not the one getting up before 6 a.m. I mean, I wasn’t, until this past Sunday. Anyway, the alarm clock was changed and changed again.
So now’s the time. As long as I’m changing the time on my clocks, I may as well situate everybody here, well and good, in Mountain Standard time. At least most of my clocks. For a few months.
Friday, November 2, 2007
sound off - a rose by any other name
So here is a question for all you bloggers w/ children: do you use their real names? Why or why not? I've been weighing pros and cons for awhile and haven't made a decision. (I'm either really slow, or very busy- maybe both.)
I'd love to use my kids nick-names, if they had any. But they don't and I'm pretty attached to their real names. I mean, I named them what I named them for a reason. And I want to use names for my kids here, because when you get three daughters and a son, it's time to identify them by more than age and gender. But I don't know about sending out their little identities unprotected into cyberspace.
Let me know what you think. If you do use your kids real names, but don't want people to necessarily know that, sign in with a different name or as annonymous so others can't link back to your blog.
Thanks! Happy Weekend!
I'd love to use my kids nick-names, if they had any. But they don't and I'm pretty attached to their real names. I mean, I named them what I named them for a reason. And I want to use names for my kids here, because when you get three daughters and a son, it's time to identify them by more than age and gender. But I don't know about sending out their little identities unprotected into cyberspace.
Let me know what you think. If you do use your kids real names, but don't want people to necessarily know that, sign in with a different name or as annonymous so others can't link back to your blog.
Thanks! Happy Weekend!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)