I never thought it would happen: sleeping in

While so many of my friends on Facebook and Twitter were lamenting the arrival of Daylight Saving Time I decided to withhold my judgement until the next day. Just as I had dared to hope: W slept in.

I do not know if I can convey to you properly the utter frustration of NOT being a morning person and having a morning person child. Pre DST W went to bed at 7pm and woke up anywhere between 5am and 6am. (and no, it did not matter what time he went to bed he was awake before the sun)

I am lucky that my Mother has to catch the bus early so she is awake with Mr. Sunshine. They had a cute breakfast routine and after Cheerios I was on deck, but rarely chipper.

For the last week W has been going to bed just a tad later in the 7:30pm genre but he has been waking up closer to 7am. I actually had to set an alarm to wake up this morning. That is the first time I have set an alarm to wake up in at least a year. Before DST my alarm was in the shape and sound of Captain Adorable who would gleefully exclaim at the foot of my bed, “YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP NOW!”

Getting just that extra hour+ of sleep has been amazing for me. Now if only I could morph into one of those Moms who wake up two hours before their kids so that they can do two hours worth of work in silence. (um, chances of THAT happening are next to nil)

The other great thing about this DST situation is that there is more light at the end of the day. This means more time to hang at the playground. This means W can run around and work off that nearly four energy. We do not care if it is below 30 degrees, if it isn’t pouring down rain we are getting our slide on at the playground. (yup, we have totally braved sprinkles)

Yesterday W did something at the playground he has never done before: he got himself into a swing in the seated position and kind of wiggled a bit to try out this thing called swinging. W has never been a fan of the swing. He would occasionally allow himself to be in my lap while I swung, but usually he is a belly swinger. He loves to get a running start and then fly onto the swing and soar on his belly like an airplane.

When I was filling out the early intervention paperwork I noticed a question about swinging and it gave me pause. What does it MEAN if you kid hates swinging? Does belly swinging count? (I honestly have no idea.)

Ok – shaking off that random moment of angst. Can you tell that I still haven’t heard back about W’s evaluation?

For now I am enjoying all the daylight hours I can with this little guy, who, by the way, has decided he is not “my baby” anymore. These final weeks leading up to four are totally surreal and new. I keep catching glimpses of a big kid and it takes my breath away. Parenting feels less about hovering about and more about conversations. I like it.