I'm dreaming of daylight savings

You remember how when you were a kid waiting for Christmas, or your birthday, or even beginning of summer vacation, and you had your sights set on it for weeks in advance? And time c-r-a-w-l-e-d the closer you got to the magic date? And you had all sorts of daydreams about just how great it was going to be, so much so that you couldn't think about anything else by the time it got down to just a few days to go?

That's how I feel about daylight savings. It's this weekend! It's almost here!!

I'm not just excited about the jump to daylight savings time. This is no ordinary anticipation. My fundamental sanity and emotional well-being is irrevocably intertwined to our capacity to "spring forward" this year.

Because I really, really, really need to sleep past five a.m.

Oh benevolent sleep gods, why have you forsaken me? Not that I've spent an inordinate amount of time tallying up the injustices committed against me in this regard (I have), but do you realize that every week for the past month, maybe two months, I have lost an entire night's worth of sleep? You lose one hour a night for seven nights, lookit that - a whole night of precious sleep evaporated into the morning gloaming.

I know, there are those of you out there mocking my 75-pound weakling self for not being able to cope on seven hours of sleep a night. But I can't do it! I'm a creature of sloth; I was built to nap.

And when I don’t get enough sleep, I am not a productive, cheery contributor to the good of society as a whole. I tend, in fact, toward the shrewish. Why is that, anyway? How come when I’m tired I become cranky and difficult and impatient? Wouldn’t it be nice if tiredness resulted in something more manageable, like say a rash? Or a case of the giggles?

When Tristan was born, the single hardest thing for me to cope with – including the cracked and bleeding nipples, the thrush, the postpartum hormonal hangover – was the sleep deprivation. I remember getting up to nurse him at 5:30 every morning and watching an old episode of Who’s the Boss or WKRP in Cincinnati (I always watched TV when I nursed Tristan – it was the only way I could stay upright and with all our latch problems I couldn’t nurse lying down), and being amazed that the world actually turned at that ungodly hour of the morning, before stumbling back upstairs and sleeping blissfully until 8 am or later. I didn't know how good I had it, even factoring in the Tony Danza overdose.

Now my boys are awake and ready to go for the day every. single. day at five o’clock. That's got to be a violation of some charter of human rights somewhere, wouldn't you think?

So you see, daylight savings is my only hope. I’ve had my calendar circled, with blue and yellow dancing stars and happy moons and trails of Zzzzzzz, for weeks. It’s gonna change everything, right? They’ll sleep in until – dare I hope for it – six o’clock, right? Right??