To My Darling Daughter

Dear Bumblebee,

I am writing this letter to you because we are approaching a very special – magical, even – event, and I want you to know just how much it means to me to be able to share it with you. While you may not be able to appreciate its significance at the tender age of 17 months, I guarantee that in time you will come to anticipate it with the same enthusiasm and joy as we do. Oh yes, I do believe that by time you are a teenager, it will provide the same amount of absolute delight as it has the potential to provide us, now.

It’s called Daylight Savings, and it means that I get to sleep in. For a whole hour. Get me?

That means, my dear bumblebee, that as of October 29, 2006, your version of 6:30 a.m. no longer exists. Because if you’ll look at the clock, that one over there, you will see that it is not, uh-uh, no way, no, it’s not 6:30 a.m. Poof! It’s gone! See? It’s only 5:30 a.m; ungodly, even for a toddler.

So go back to sleep.

Please, please, please, please, pretty please go back to sleep and let your poor tired, mother have that delicious, delightful, DESERVED extra hour of sleep. Please, please, please. If you do, your daddy will buy you a pony. I promise.

Because, ok, I see I’m losing you here. Let me try reasoning with you. When I say an extra hour of sleep, really, that’s just the technical term. That would be implying that I have already had my sleep and that this hour is truly a bonus. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it bumblebee?

It would be so nice, and it would be true, if you didn’t wake up 3 times a night for some booby and a cuddle. And while I love giving you some booby and a cuddle, you do manage to time your booby-and-cuddling needs pretty poorly. Like, you seem to always need the ol’ b&c right after I have (finally!) fallen into a deep sleep (and for me, a deep sleep means that I can ignore the sounds of the cat’s midnight rampage and stay tuned-in only to the mildly disturbing grunts and groans our house likes to fart out all night, implying that a gas line is about to burst or a window is about to be jimmied open by a burgler – perhaps someone who got more than 5 hours of sleep a night would not be so paranoid?). And you like to interrupt my fun dreams involving dr. mcdreamy and that cute boy from work and me all sitting around on a beach, passing a hoolie and watching the waves… never mind. But um, you also love to wake up 25 minutes before my alarm goes off, then, while you sprawl back to sleep, I like in wake, trying to talk myself out of quitting my job just so that I can sleep for 25 bleedin more minutes.

And lovebug? Have you seen the bags under my eyes? They are not even black like a normal sleep-deprived mother. No, I am semitic, so my black eyes are as yellow as the desert from whence I came. It’s a nice look, bee. It makes me look like a dead person. No, scratch that, I look look like I died and someone dug me up. And I’m doing lots of dumb things that I can only blame on sleep deprivation. Like, did you know that hand soap and toothpaste are not interchangeable? I really need to move that pump farther from the toothbrushes. And how about filling the car up with gas and then realizing that my wallet is sitting on the couch, next to my lunch? Good times. And, yummmmm – that orange juice I poured on my cereal was tas-tee!

So please bumblebee, my sweet, sweet love: on October 29, let’s do what the civilized folk will be doing – let’s go back to sleep. I swear, 6:30 is the new 5:30, and you and I could both use the extra 40 – nay, 60 winks. And when you wake up in an hour, we’ll go brush that pretty pony and eat ice cream for breakfast.

I’m so glad we had this talk. Now go ask your father where babies come from.

Love, your mother.


bumblebee, in pigtails, ponders her mother's request and other mysteries of the universe.