Fall Back (and take a nap)

You know that extra hour of sleep you need just to catch up? Well, you are about to get it. Today (yup, it's Sunday) at 3 a.m., we fell back an hour. If you are reading this at 8 a.m., it might only be 7 a.m. (Did you forget to change your clocks?) If you are reading this between the hours of midnight and whenever your bedtime might be, go ahead and set your clocks back now.

Ironically, in our house, there are no clocks to set back. Everything is digital and changes automatically. Our cable boxes, computers, even our phones (that serve, additionally, as our morning alarms). I do wear a watch, so I will need to turn back the hand on that, but otherwise, I'll just wake up, realize it's earlier than I think, and fall back to sleep. I say that, forgetting completely that at least one of the four children sleeping right now will wake up according to the cycle of their body, want breakfast, a dog to play with, or just a little company. Or one of our two dogs will want to go out to pee, chase squirrels, or sniff odor tracks left by bears. So really, clocks falling back in no way afford me any more sleep.

Still, the payoff of having a houseful of people and animals to love far exceeds to benefit of a little more sleep. Or lack thereof.