Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise?

During my grade school years my mom invoked upon my sister and I an early bedtime. She had her reasons; such as having to work early in the morning and needing to have us up, dressed, fed, and ready for school before she left for work. She has also confessed that it was also partly due to wanting some quiet time before she went to bed herself. To my sister and I this early bedtime was a big injustice especially since on several occasions during the summer months (when I was 9 and she was 6) we would go to bed and hear the neighbor kids playing outside the window. In fact, my mom found us on more then one occasion looking out the window at them. There were also many, many times when giggling would bring my mom in to see what we were up to. Most of the time it was utter silliness that we had made up to keep ourselves entertained until we were tired. I'll bet that most nights we stayed up giggling for a good while before falling asleep, even after my mom hung a blanket in the window to help block out some of the light. ;) Needless to say my kids will have a 9:00-9:30 bedtime in grade school and something later in Jr. High and High School.