Why oh why?

This is, I'm afraid, a completely standard parental lament so I apologize in advance. But how is it that children know to sleep in only on the days when not only does it not do their parents any good, but actually makes things harder?

The boys have been running on empty a bit lately. Jamie managed to earn us a reproof recently from his teacher because he spent much of the day at school lolling about saying he was to tired to do anything, so of course we got the "get them to bed early" speech. Really this is just what we get for having two boys with opposite sleep habits in the same room. Jamie, left to his own devices, will fall asleep quite quickly (assuming a detailed list of conditions has been adequately met). Connor, on the other hand, views his first entry into bed as merely the first act in an elaborate drama, which may go on for hours, featuring various excursions around the house, reading books, playing with toys and generally a lot of noise. So on the one hand we've got him keeping Jamie up. On the other hand in the morning, Jamie is up by 6:30 watching the clock like a hawk for the magic hour, when he pronounces victoriously, "It's 7!!!" (the phrase has become synonymous in Connor's mind to "time to get up" so he says when he wakes up no matter what time it is) and the day begins. Connor, left to his own devices, would happily go on sleeping, but the prospect of being up with Jamie is too much to resist, so he usually gets up too. Hence they are tired all day.

Having done this all weekend, and all summer for that matter, this morning, Monday, ie. schoolday, of course, they sleep in. We have already been up showering and getting meals ready for them and they are snoozing away at 7:30. Sarah went in and rustled about, opening windows hoping to roust them but it produces no discernible effect, where usually the slightest noise from our side of the happway will produce eager inquiries into our state of wakefulness. How, how how do they know to do this? Finally, she woke Jamie up and he reanimated pretty quickly. Connor, however, tried to ignore her and stay in bed, rolling over and covering his face with his woobie. Occasionally, he does this, though more often at nap time. Once weekend, when a nap threatened to push 3 hours and throw nighttime schedules completely off, I went into his room and gently shook him, saying "Time for bunnies to wake up." He opened his eyes slightly, and mumbled "Time for bunny sleepies," and rolled back over. This morning, however, Sarah was persistent and so finally Connor bounced up and declared triumphantly, "It's 7!"