Time change in reverse

Spring forward, fall back. Regardless of the fact that we changed the clocks in March this year, it's always lose an hour the spring and gain an hour in the fall.

Except if you have young children.

Because children Austin's age don't understand the concept of time. He wakes up at approximately the same time every day -- between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. So, when the clocks change, he doesn't know the difference.

But here's the catch. In the fall, when we all celebrate getting an extra hour of sleep because the clocks moved back an hour, parents of young children are up one hour earlier. A child who is normally up at 7:30 a.m., is suddenly up at 6:30 a.m. We were lucky last fall, Austin only took a day or so to readjust his schedule. Some kids take a week or more.

But the nice thing is, technically, us parents get an extra hour of sleep in the spring, when everyone else loses an hour. Because, instead of waking up at 7 a.m. this morning, Austin was up at 8 a.m.

I say technically, because I know 8 is really 7 and I didn't gain anything -- but it felt great, because it's not very often that Austin lets us sleep until 8!