Living at a more northern latitude this time of year really messes with you.  The sun rises after we’ve all gotten up for the day and sets well before Dan is home from work.  If he didn’t bring the kids home at lunchtime, Dan would never see our apartment in the daylight during the week.  It’s even worse for the kids, who still take mid-day naps.  They wake up twice every day, in the morning and in the afternoon, but both times in complete darkness.  It does a number on their body clocks.  The other day, Liam woke up at 4:00 a.m., ready to go for the day — this from a kid that I have to pull out of bed at 7:00 every morning.

Yesterday was a profoundly cloudy day.  There were heavy, gray clouds with intermittent rain all day.  Liam woke up after nap time (in the dark), and asked, as he often does this time of year, if it was morning or night.  I told him it was night (B corrected me and told me it was evening) and Liam asked me, a little sadly, “Why didn’t the sun come up today?”

I get it.  That’s totally how it feels.  Living here is very dark in the winter, and the days when the sun doesn’t come up at all are a bit of a bummer.  We’re in to the darkest two weeks of the year now, though, and then things will be getting a little brighter.  (Another plus to going home for Christmas — we’ll spend two weeks of the darkest month of the year much further south, with more daylight!)