My desire to be fit and to keep up with my exercise routines posed a bit of a conundrum for the mornings: I had been waking E at 6:30, and Beloved had been getting up at 7 and waking up J (I usually hopped back into bed once I got E into the shower, and dozed until Beloved's alarm went off). The bar class and the end of the law-school routine meant that if I wanted to go running in the a.m., I'd have to be back to wake E up at 6:30. Beloved and I talked about getting her an alarm clock, but it seemed so ... unreliable. She's just a kid. It would be so easy for her to just turn it off and go back to sleep, and it just didn't seem like something we could trust. We did decide, though, that it wouldn't hurt to try.

But I kept forgetting to buy one for her. So Beloved (the King that he is) started setting HIS alarm for 6:30 so that he could wake her, and I could leave at 5:45 for my run.

Finally, last week, I got her an alarm clock. I sent her off with the instructions to read and to set it up. She did a pretty good job - except didn't have the a.m./p.m. right, so the alarm would have gone off the next evening at 6:30 p.m. But that's exactly why I checked it.

Another funny: She came out saying, "Hey mom, what's a "tuner"? It's one of the choices for the alarm, but I don't understand." The child has an amazing vocabulary - this wasn't a vocab issue. The issue is that she has never really listened to the radio. We don't really listen to the radio. How strange. I grew up with the radio (KC101 out of Hartford/New Haven, to be precise), and so did Beloved. But now --- we listen to XM in the Zipcars and to iPods (and before that, CDs) at home. When we were in Berkeley I listened to the radio some, but only in the car, and she was always in the back seat strapped into her carseat.

It struck me as funny that at almost 11 years of age, she didn't know what a "tuner" is.

Anyway - guess what? The alarm has worked great! The first day, she had it set way too loud, and wasn't sure how to turn it off. To be yanked out of sleep with the thing blaring like that was difficult, and it made J start to cry, and then E went running to sleeping Beloved a little frantic "I can't turn it off! I can't turn it off!" But we adjusted the volume, and now it's going really well.

This morning I asked her why she was running behind, and she said, "well, I don't know. When I left my room, it was 6:31, and I set the timer for my shower for 15 minutes, but when I got back to my room, it was 6:51. So I'm running behind." Her talking about time with such precision made me giggle.

To me, it's another step of independence for her. Honestly, I love this. I am just not one of those moms who sobs as my kids grow up and develop new skills. I'm excited for them. I'm excited to see who they're turning into ... especially since so far, so good :)

Labels: *E*, kids, morning routines, parenting

posted by Zuska @ 3:28 PM

1 Comments:

At Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:28:00 PM, Legal Quandary said…

We bought EC an alarm clock right after Lil Q was born - close to 5 years ago. EC is almost 13 now, but has been pretty much responsible for getting herself up and ready for the last 4 1/2 years. Not that we haven't had days when "the alarm didn't go off!" or "I set it for PM by mistake," but all in all, it's been great!

And when she really, really wants to do something and knows we have to get out of the house early to do it, you should see the motivation in that kid!