Alarm Clock

Hope has always been a good sleeper. She slept through the night from 12 days old, she still napped at age 5, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times she's been up in the middle of the night. But she has never ever been one to sleep in. It doesn't matter how late she's up the night before. In fact, it always seems that the later she stays up, the earlier she gets up in the morning. This is NOT FUN on the weekends, but works out great on school days. When she's up at 6:15, it makes it pretty easy to get to school by 7:45.

Well, lately (as in the past couple of weeks), she has been sleeping later (only on school days), and I've had to wake her up by about 6:40. I go in quietly and turn on her closet light, turn off her fan and sit on her bed, patting her gently. Yesterday she informed me that she's tired of me "barging into her room" in the morning and waking her up and that I should just let her get up on her own. So, we are now setting an alarm clock, for the child that has always been my alarm clock, so that she will not have to be so rudely awakened by her mother in the mornings.

Last night we went through an alarm clock tutorial - making sure it was set for 6:40 a.m. - not p.m. - learning the difference between snooze and off, and checking to make sure the "little dot" was by the numbers so she knew it was turned on. This morning was the big test . . . and she came trudging down the stairs at 6:15. "I just couldn't wait for it to go off, mom. I was too excited." Tonight she chose to set it for 6:35. Maybe she can force herself to stay in bed until then. . .