Hope’s Corner: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Do the first few days after we switch from Daylight Saving Time feel like the Twilight Zone to you? Do you find yourself checking the time, because it feels like you have missed your alarm, missed an appointment, or missed a meal?

Waking up an hour later is the easy part. Unless you are a kid or a dog. Otherwise, you are going to roll with it, and roll over for that additional hour. Of course, if you have kids or dogs, that extra hour of sleep is elusive.

There is nothing more awake and eager on a Sunday morning than a toddler with an empty cereal bowl or a cocker spaniel with an empty kibble bowl. On Standard Time Sunday, parents often plan ahead by setting out cereal bowls and boxes, and filling dogfood bowls. And on any Sunday, but especially on Standard Time Sunday, kids and dogs refuse to be the only ones up when they’re ready for breakfast. They want company.

To their credit, kids will fill their cereal bowls by themselves, and dogs will empty their dogfood bowls by themselves. But they still need an audience. That is why, last Sunday morning at 4:30 Standard Time, Katie the Wonder Puppy was patting the bed to let us know it was time to get up.

She feels she needs an escort service to take her outside first thing the morning. She is convinced there are monsters behind the shrubberies. There are not. Everybody knows that monsters hide under the bed, instead.

Mealtimes are the hardest to change. In the spring, it is no problem to eat lunch an hour earlier when we switch to Daylight Saving Time. Actually, it is no problem to eat lunch an hour earlier any time of the year. It is also no problem to have second lunch earlier, either. The nice part about second lunch is that it does not need to happen at a certain time. You can have it any time between noon and first supper.

How do you tell a four-year old – either a kid or a dog – that he must wait another hour for supper? Kids and dogs both have the uncanny ability to get a mom away from household chores, or from reading a splendid murder mystery, and into the kitchen to start preparing supper.

Around here, Katie gets me moving a couple hours before suppertime. This works well if we are having something elegant that takes a lot of prep time. Like tater tot hotdish. On Standard Time Sunday, that means Katie begins giving me the stinkeye at 3:00, which is 4:00 Belly Time.

Many years ago we switched to Belly Time. It is a time concept akin to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Belly Time works well with kids, dogs, and trips to Bismarck. When your belly says it is hungry, then it is mealtime.

And Belly Time is how, and why, we also have switched to include a second lunch and second supper.