My children are on two sleep schedules. During the weekend, they wake up and start roaming the halls (and making breakfast and playing freeze tag and fake sword fighting) at roughly 5am.
During the week, however, they act like I am poking them with sharp sticks when I ask them to get up and get ready for school.
In an attempt to sidestep the inevitable battle of the wills, I gave each child a small battery-powered alarm clock, programmed with the proper wake up time.
As I have quickly learned, this means nothing.
So far, my daughter is the only one out of the three who has managed to resist temptation. Her alarm goes off every morning at the appointed hour. Cortlen and Kellen, however, are enamored with the magic buttons. As a result, their alarms routinely go off at 2 in the afternoon, in the middle of dinner, or, if we are really lucky, every five minutes.
"Do not touch this," I said last night after I reset the clock for the billioneth time this week.
Both people inhabiting the bedroom promised to leave the contraption alone.
"Get up!" Cortlen screamed this morning as he ran, fully dressed, backpack on, into our bedroom. "We're late for school!" he screamed. "It's 7:30!"
It was pitch dark outside. "Go back to bed," I mumbled and glanced at my clock. It said 4:45am.
When I went to go wake him up a little over an hour later, he pulled his covers over his head and growled at me.
What I need, methinks, is a rooster.
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22 comments
Laughing out loud! There must be a better way?!
I don't understand this weird quirk of children's body clocks...when it is ok to sleep in up at the rear end of dawn...need to get up at a "normal" time it is like you are torturing them and you didn't go to the trouble to get them in bed on time the night before...
glad to hear my daughter isn't the only crayz one!
Hilarious. Hopefully the charm of the buttons will wear off. If not - I've been using this alarm clock with my son http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Childrens-Alarm-Clock-Nightlight/dp/B002RNKOM2 the buttons are behind a panel in the back. He still pulls the panel off plays with the buttons but if you aren't going to be changing the times ten you could probably just duct tape the panel shut to deter pokey fingers.
That is hilarious!! I'm sad to admit that I once changed my parents alarm clock to go off at 2 am. Kids!!
I tried the alarm clock routine as well. But the little ones (and I assume at least one of the middles and one of the oldest) took them all apart.
I found pieces for weeks.
Right now, they're doing well with waking up. But if grouchiness rears its ugly head again, I'm pulling out my MIL's secret weapon. A spray bottle filled with water.
That's so funny. Our two boys could never figure out how to turn their clocks on and off so we got voice activated ones. The idea was good until they were yelling "ALARM ON" at 11:00 at night. Thankfully they now have cell phones that they know how to work and I no longer get up with them now that they are teenagers.
My children are the same way. They especially don't want to get up when we have 8:00 church on Sunday.
A rooster sounds like a good idea;)
Glad to know I'm not alone.
My neighbors have a rooster....the stupid things crows all day and night. I like TS idea for the clock with the buttons behind the pannel
I'm laughing so hard here at work I'm going to get into trouble!!! Love your blog!
Oh my god, thank you so much for the huge laugh....
I had 2 roosters - and yup - they crowed all day every day, that was until one morning I went outside and "turned off their alarms"....dinner that night never tasted so good....
Lest you think me cruel - we bought several hens for egg purposes and by accident had 2 roosters in the bunch; couldn't very well risk baby chicks now could we?
Our neighbor has roosters and peacocks. The rooster wakes up the peacock with it's crows and then the peacock wakes everyone in the neighborhood up with it's shrills that sound like a dying cat.
Or the clock up on a shelf in the closet so they can't adjust it but they will hear it going off. Good luck :)
Why do they do this?!?! it drives me CRAZY!! Mine are very much the same!!!
My kids (teenagers) don't want to go to bed on a school night but when the weekend rolls around, they're asleep by 11.
MY kids had an alarm clock and I thought I was so smart. I disassembled it and removed the buttons to change the alarm. All they had were two pencil sized holes and they couldn't do anything because I broke the circuits. Took my 8 year old stepson about 2 weeks for figure out a paperclip would fix the circuit and the alarm would go off at random times....
I can only imagine what your kids would do with a rooster...
Sandy
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Maybe electric shock collars attached to the clock might rouse the young scamps.
WHY do all kids do this???? It makes NO sense why they would willingly get up @ 6:30am on wknds & yet I have to pry the blankets out of their clutched fingers on school mornings!!
Short version: You are not alone!!!
My kids are the exact same way! Up early on weekends, up late during the week. It's so weird right? My 7 year old says "If you let me stay up as late as I feel like, then I can get up super early. If you make me go to bed, I'm too tired in the morning". I'm starting to believe her!
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