Fall back

I'm not among those who whine and complain and develop conspiracy theories in March, when our clocks 'spring forward' one momentous Saturday night and the whole time zone collectively 'loses' an hour of sleep. I keep my eyes on the prize, and the prize is more daylight, when I need it--which is to say, after supper, rather than at 5am. So I am never really that excited when the clocks 'fall back' in early November: I am, mostly*, just really grateful that we do this now three or four weeks later than we used to, so that the grim months of daycare pickups in the dark are that much shortened.

Still, I have to say: what a great thing it was to drag my sorry self into bed at 10:30 last night, to read a new book for half an hour, and then, just before turning out the light, to roll the digital readout back to 10pm. And then I slept, uninterrupted by dreams or nightmares or babies or husbands or insomnia, until 7am.

If you're counting--and believe me, I am counting--that's 9 hours of sleep, all in a row. Such a bounty of unbroken hours of sleep does not often grace my life. In fact, I write a lot here about not sleeping. What a difference it makes to my day. It is, actually, amazing to me how changed I am--my mood, my reflexes, my outlook on life, my patience, my cognition, my laughs--when I, on these rare occasions, sleep through a whole night.

To whit: today, I had a little reunion with two of my good friends from pregnant-lady-yoga, from three years ago. We used to get together with our wee babies and drink tea while they lay inert on the carpet. Well. Mom #1 has had a second, so she arrived with husband, 2 year old, and 1 year old in tow. Mom #2 has sponsored her husband's children from his first marriage to emigrate to Canada, so she arrived with four children swirling around her like a autumn leaves in a gale: aged 2, 7, 9, 10. If you're counting--and believe me, I am counting--that's seven kids and 5 adults. For a good long while we perched in the attic playroom, distant repository of toys too noisy and annoying for everyday use. Their volume did not dim in the cacophany of 14 kid hands bashing them about.

After they all left? A faint buzz in my ears, as after a rock concert, and a good feeling. I enjoyed it.

Lemme tell you, if it hadn't been for that extra hour, and that gift from the gods of insomnia that let me use it fruitfully, it might have been a different story.

And now, if you don't mind, I'll be falling back into either my bed or big glass of wine, or some sequence of both.
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* I say 'mostly' because now that it's still Daylight Savings Time until after Halloween? The toddlers have to head out trick-or-treating while it's still daylight, and that's no good at all.