Wake-up Call

About three weeks ago Mike and Jake were talking.  Jake isn't a huge fan of practicing piano, but he really thinks it stinks that he has to have his practice finished before heading out to play with friends.  It's our torture, but also our ace-in-the-hole to make sure practicing gets done.  We call it "incentive".

Anyway - Mike offered that maybe Jake should get up when Maddie gets up, get his practicing done before school, and then when he gets home all he has to do is his homework and chore cards (which are working great!).

Jake thought it sounded like a great idea and asked me to wake him up with Maddie. 

At 6:25 A.M....in the morning. 

I did. 

To our great surprise he got right out of bed, headed downstairs and by 6:30 A.M. he was practicing "The Wedding March".  He was very excited that afternoon when he walked in the door and said, "I DO NOT HAVE TO PRACTICE MY PIANO!"  He had 20 minutes of reading, half a page of math and declared, "My day is FREE!"

So, now, most days at 6:30 A.M. you will see this:

While outside it looks like this:

I cannot stess the 6:30 A.M. time enough.

Yesterday Mike came upstairs from his office for breakfast at about 6:40am.  He looked at me, and banged his head on the cupboard and mentioned that he didn't think he could handle this anymore.  I said, "Whose idea was this?"

Deflated, he said, "Mine" and loaded up on coffee.