Alarming Ways to Wake Up
My No. 3 and No. 4 sons have just crossed one of life’s bigger thresholds. They are now awakened from their nightly slumbers by an alarm clock, instead of by me, or my wife, or the sound of the school bus engine as it pulls away from their stop.
I expected No. 3 to start rousing himself on his own this school year. He’s a 7th grader, after all; he gets twitchy when his parents are in the same zip code as he is, much less wandering into his own personal bedroom/sanctum sanctorum.
I'm surprised, however, that No. 4, who’s only 10 years old, chose an automated wake-up system over the tender ministrations of his parents. Well, I’m tender anyway. I tiptoe quietly into the room (Thing That Makes You Go “Hmmmmm” Alert: can one tiptoe loudly?), sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, and gently pat his back, or softly tousle his hair.
My wife, on the other hand, sort of barrels into the room, pulling up the blinds and loudly chirping “Good MORN-ing sleepyhead!” My mother used to do something quite similar; she’d snap up the windowshades – which snapped up right noisily – while singing a song that went, “It’s time to get UP! Get UP! Get UP!”
I love you mom, but I gotta tell ya, I never cared much for that.
I wonder if, on some level, a woman uses these startling and jarring techniques to exact a smidgen of revenge for all those nights she was awakened by a baby’s squalling.
Then again, my dad wouldn't wake me any more gently. His thing was to stick a finger in an exposed ear. Sometimes, I think he licked the finger first. I guess when I squalled at night as a babe, he must’ve woken up too.
I should mention that no matter which wake-up technique we used with No. 4, my wife and I would both get the same reaction. He’d emit a groan or moan or scream – whichever was working the loudest that morning – and then holler, at the top of his lungs, “NOOOO!!! Go away!!! Go a-WAY!!!” Then he would disappear deep into the nether regions of his sheets and blankets. So in his case, it’s not like my approach put him in any better mood than my wife’s.
I can’t remember first time I woke up to an alarm clock. I’m pretty sure I relied on mom and dad throughout my high school years.
At Christmas during my senior year in high school, I got an excellent Sears-brand radio alarm clock from my parents. You may find this hard to believe, mom and dad, but I still have it! I guess you could say that over the years, it’s lost some of its, um, aesthetic value; it’s missing the panel that had the radio frequencies and hash marks on it, knobs are bent or missing, and the clock stopped clocking about 20 years ago. But the radio still works!
For years, when I lived in places where I could get the signal from WGN radio in Chicago, I’d put this sturdy little receiver in the basement and listen to Chicago Cubs games on it. It was my “lucky” Cubs radio. Which, considering the Cubs have now gone 99 straight seasons without a championship, suggests that the guys at the factory didn’t install much luck in it.
Have you ever noticed that your mood for an entire day can be influenced by your alarm? For example, sometimes you’re awakened by a song that you just can’t get out of your head for the rest of the day. This is all well and good when it’s a song that totally rocks, like, say, the theme to “Sesame Street,” which in my personal opinion, should be on the Billboard Top Ten for all eternity.
No. 3 son guarantees himself this upbeat experience every day by waking up to tunes he’s stored on his iPod, none of which, oddly enough, are songs that he loathes.
But No. 4 son is old-school. He takes his chances, and wakes up to whatever song is on the radio. He came downstairs crabbier than usual the other day, blaming it on the music. He said the tune was okay, but he couldn’t stand the lyrics: “Good MORN-ing sleepyheads!/Get UP! Get UP!”
# # #
TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
I expected No. 3 to start rousing himself on his own this school year. He’s a 7th grader, after all; he gets twitchy when his parents are in the same zip code as he is, much less wandering into his own personal bedroom/sanctum sanctorum.
I'm surprised, however, that No. 4, who’s only 10 years old, chose an automated wake-up system over the tender ministrations of his parents. Well, I’m tender anyway. I tiptoe quietly into the room (Thing That Makes You Go “Hmmmmm” Alert: can one tiptoe loudly?), sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, and gently pat his back, or softly tousle his hair.
My wife, on the other hand, sort of barrels into the room, pulling up the blinds and loudly chirping “Good MORN-ing sleepyhead!” My mother used to do something quite similar; she’d snap up the windowshades – which snapped up right noisily – while singing a song that went, “It’s time to get UP! Get UP! Get UP!”
I love you mom, but I gotta tell ya, I never cared much for that.
I wonder if, on some level, a woman uses these startling and jarring techniques to exact a smidgen of revenge for all those nights she was awakened by a baby’s squalling.
Then again, my dad wouldn't wake me any more gently. His thing was to stick a finger in an exposed ear. Sometimes, I think he licked the finger first. I guess when I squalled at night as a babe, he must’ve woken up too.
I should mention that no matter which wake-up technique we used with No. 4, my wife and I would both get the same reaction. He’d emit a groan or moan or scream – whichever was working the loudest that morning – and then holler, at the top of his lungs, “NOOOO!!! Go away!!! Go a-WAY!!!” Then he would disappear deep into the nether regions of his sheets and blankets. So in his case, it’s not like my approach put him in any better mood than my wife’s.
I can’t remember first time I woke up to an alarm clock. I’m pretty sure I relied on mom and dad throughout my high school years.
At Christmas during my senior year in high school, I got an excellent Sears-brand radio alarm clock from my parents. You may find this hard to believe, mom and dad, but I still have it! I guess you could say that over the years, it’s lost some of its, um, aesthetic value; it’s missing the panel that had the radio frequencies and hash marks on it, knobs are bent or missing, and the clock stopped clocking about 20 years ago. But the radio still works!
For years, when I lived in places where I could get the signal from WGN radio in Chicago, I’d put this sturdy little receiver in the basement and listen to Chicago Cubs games on it. It was my “lucky” Cubs radio. Which, considering the Cubs have now gone 99 straight seasons without a championship, suggests that the guys at the factory didn’t install much luck in it.
Have you ever noticed that your mood for an entire day can be influenced by your alarm? For example, sometimes you’re awakened by a song that you just can’t get out of your head for the rest of the day. This is all well and good when it’s a song that totally rocks, like, say, the theme to “Sesame Street,” which in my personal opinion, should be on the Billboard Top Ten for all eternity.
No. 3 son guarantees himself this upbeat experience every day by waking up to tunes he’s stored on his iPod, none of which, oddly enough, are songs that he loathes.
But No. 4 son is old-school. He takes his chances, and wakes up to whatever song is on the radio. He came downstairs crabbier than usual the other day, blaming it on the music. He said the tune was okay, but he couldn’t stand the lyrics: “Good MORN-ing sleepyheads!/Get UP! Get UP!”
# # #
TakeFiveT5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 2:32 PM
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