The First Thing He Asked For Was Ice Cream

I say this every six months or so, but the time change is not fun. Oh, before we had kids, the one in the fall was lots of fun because it meant an automatic extra hour of sleep. But since babies don’t really understand how that works, it doesn’t. You lose an hour of sleep anyway. Well, you don’t actually lose it, but since you were planning on gaining an hour of sleep and you don’t, it’s like you lost it.

And then there’s the whole “Spring Forward,” which I’ve always disliked in practice, but not in spirit. I know that makes no sense. But here’s what I’m pretending it means today: I hate losing that hour of sleep and having to adjust my body clock by a whole hour. But I really enjoy having the daylight hours shifted a little later, especially when the weather is warm and Caedmon can play outside after dinner. Because those are the toughest 2 hours of our day and as we all know, being outside makes everything better in the boy’s eyes.

Caedmon has been waking up early for the past few weeks, and I’ve been desperately trying to find something to blame it on other than “he just needs less sleep now.” (Because I’m not buying that one.) He’s been waking up between 6:30 and 7:00. And just so ya’ll know, no, I do not get him out of bed then. I am a firm believer that he must stay in his bed until it’s time to get up, and since he’ll be in a crib until he’s five, I can do that. So he gets up at 7:30. I was hoping beyond hope that with the time change, he’d go back to sleeping at least until his regular time (7:30) and maybe a little late (8:00).

Yesterday he was awake right between 7:30 and 8:00. It was great. I thought we were on a roll, because apparently in my sleep-deprived mind and tired eyes (more on that later), once constitutes “a roll.” And then nap was super-short yesterday as it usually is on Sunday, and when bedtime came, the boy was still going strong. So, remembering my childhood days of lying awake in my bed wasting away the daylight hours during that first week of time change, I let him stay up a little late. A whole half-hour. Because I couldn’t take it anymore. And Celebrity Apprentice was about to come on, and there’s no way I was missing seeing all that hair dysfunction in one room.

(Anybody else watching Celebrity Apprentice? I am all about the guys’ team right now.)

Caedmon went to bed at 8:00. But it was at least 9:00 before he fell asleep. He played, goofed off, and yelled for me once. I went in to check on him, and he told me he needed to snuggle. Which, in 2-year-old, actually means “I want you to come in here with me for a while, because it’s going to be quite some time before I actually go to sleep.”

So then I was hoping the late night would mean that Caedmon would sleep late this morning. I was delusional, obviously, because I can probably count on one hand the number of times the boy has actually slept late. And honestly, I would’ve just wasted it by not crawling out of bed until I had to. But since he was still sleeping when Husband left for work at 7:30, I was thinking maybe a quiet house would encourage more sleep.

And then approximately 3 minutes later, I heard, “Momma! I need ice cream!”

Really?

Apparently so.

I went to get Caedmon up, and he’d decided to forego the ice cream, but told me he was “so hungy” (so hungry). That called for chocolate Mini-Bites Mini-Wheats all around. Currently we’re sharing a bowl as Caedmon endeavors to make himself sick by spinning around in Husband’s office chair. It’s not ice cream, but it’s chocolate. For breakfast.

Life doesn’t get much better than that. Unless you eat ice cream for breakfast. Or you get to be a Momma to a little boy who doesn’t sleep quite as much as you’d like, but greets you with a hug and kiss every morning and doesn’t mind sharing his chocolate Mini-Bites Mini-Wheats.