ALARMing

We get up early on weekdays. With Johnnie's school bus driving schedule, he needs to be clocking in by about 6:20 am to get the high school kids delivered on time. Backing that schedule up, our first alarm goes off at 4:46 am. It's a radio that comes on and the volume increases quickly to ear-splitting levels. I have a remote control and have perfected the skill of rolling over, picking up the remote and aiming it accurately at the radio to reduce the volume without really awakening.

We have also learned how to sleep through that alarm with no problem. So we added a travel alarm that sits on my nightstand and another on Johnnie's side of the bed at staggered times. We shortly discovered that both of them only ring for about a minute. We can withstand that, also no problem. So we have added a couple others including Bob from Brookstone which has a quiet beep but a rather penetrating purple glow about it that will jar me (sometimes) from sleep, if I'm not snoozing with my head aimed away from the clock. Hmmmmm.

Early in the school year when we're a bit more motivated and more rested, we seem to hear the alarms and get up more easily. By this time of the school year though, we start to have a problem. We can successfully sleep through all the alarms. A couple weeks ago, Johnnie lept out of bed at about 5:30 and started rushing around to get ready in time to get to work.

Clearly we needed more help. I saw the TimeSmart (tm) clock advertised in an email from Brookstone that has dual alarms and it also escalates its volume until you slap the darn thing. Each alarm goes for 20 minutes. Even we can't sleep through that. So we bought it and it's working well for us. We have it set so that the first alarm goes off at 5:05 am and the second goes off at 5:25 am so if we somehow can sleep through the first 20 minutes of annoying beeping, we get another 20 minutes from the second alarm. We're still sleeping in the guest room while we continue to demolish the bathroom but so far the new alarm is working great. This bedroom is smaller and the acoustics are different but we have hope for our eventual transition back into our bedroom. And the dogs have figured out that when they hear the annoying beeps that we will finally get up. So it's working.

On weekends we work hard to not get up with alarm clocks at all.

Conversations with Emily

Scene: sitting in the parking lot at BJ's waiting for Erin and Lucy to come out.
Emily: Why are we in the parking lot?
Me: We're waiting for Mommy and Lucy to come out.
repeat the above three times
Emily: Do you see Mommy and Lucy? (she can see out her window as well as I can)
Me: No, they're not coming yet.
Emily: Yes they are.
Me, looking: I don't see them.
Emily: They're up there. (pointing to the slate gray sky, no clouds in sight; also no Mommy and Lucy)
Me: looking: Where?
Emily: Right there, up in the sky.
Me: continuing to look: What are they doing?
Emily: Flying in a V formation. (giggling)
Where the heck did she hear about flying in V formations?

Scene: Erin and Lucy have arrived and are in the van ready to go. Erin motions to me to roll down the window. We get our next stop straight, roll up windows and off we go.
Emily: Why was the window down?
Me: Why do you think? (attempting to get her to think on her own)
Emily: I don't know (we hear this a lot)
Me: I was talking to Mommy.
Emily: Talking to Mommy? Why?
Me, trying to come up with a three-year-old appropriate answer while driving and mind already on something else: Um, well...
Emily: Because Mommy is your friend.
Me: You're right, she's my friend.