saving the light

Soon, it’ll be Daylight Savings Time again. Or is that what we’re in now? What I mean is, soon, we’re changing the time. You gain an hour, you lose an hour. No one is ever really clear on the concept. It’s one of those things – like how everyone always calls Memorial Day Labor Day and Labor Day Memorial Day and no one really pays attention. We know there are three-day weekends at some point in May and September and to store any more information about it would be to tax our already troubled brains, so we let the news anchors fill us in and our computers do their automatic updates.

This year I am really looking forward to the extra hour. What it’ll look like in my world is Mike arriving home with the sun still in the sky and the possibility of he and Isaac going for a walk or otherwise leaving the premises and me to myself. This will be good.

Last year, things were different. The extra hour was a smack in the face from the hand of “Shit, I’m a mom now.” Instead of relishing the extra light, the extra energy that normally accompanies it, I found myself cursing the clock and pulling the blinds shut so as to begin the “nighttime routine” and try to get my kid to bed before dawn (so that I could then try to get him back to bed another half a dozen times before dawn). That hand came down and WHAM. Nighttime routine?!? This is the long haul. This is the real thing. This changes everything.

It’s been a year now. Besides 10 hours a week with the sitter beginning when he was six and a half months old, I have stayed home with Isaac full time. They say you have to admit your problem before you can change it. I am a stay-at-home mom. Forgive me if I don’t read that sentence back for another year or so. They say babies grow up so fast, enjoy every minute. They say some people aren’t “baby people.” They say this is a “great age.” They say that about every age. They say “you look great.” They still say that. They say you seem like you are doing really well.