Long Days on the Prairie

So here's what I was thinking as I was lying in bed this morning at 6:20, unable to go back to sleep because Thomas was awake and kept asking for stuff and I was debating whether I should just get up:

Why on earth does it get light so early and stay light so late? I mean, I know why. (Just kidding. I don't know why. I know it's something having to do with the earth and the sun and all that, but frankly, I never understood it. And I don't really need to.) My real question is, what to do about it?

Back in the day (and night), when people farmed for a living and did not have electricity, they got up and went out to the fields when it was light, worked til it got dark, and went to bed. (I'm guessing. I wasn't there.) When it was winter, they just tried to make it through to another spring without freezing to death. (This is based on some Little House on the Prairie reruns I saw when I was a kid.) (Oh, and I read the books, too.)

So why don't we take that approach now? I realize it might be the wrong time to bring this up. Winter would be much easier now, since we have TV and heat. All we'd be required to do is hunker down, watch the Soaps, and sleep away the long nights. Mmmm, now doesn't that sound nice?

The difficulty comes in the spring and summer. These days, with their fifteen hours of sunlight, energize me (heck, I cleaned my bathroom the other day!), but it's hard to keep going until it gets dark. And I'm certainly not going to let Thomas stay up from 6 am til 9 pm. As if he could do it. He'd try, but the result would be unpleasant (read: miserable).

As I said before. I need curtains for his room. Maybe, though, I can manage to keep him on a sensible schedule for a two-year-old, despite the sunlight, and still take advantage of the situation myself. I don't have chickens to feed or crops to harvest (not REAL ones anyway!), but my kitchen could use a good scrub.