Our OK to Wake Owl

When I found the OK to Wake Owl on Amazon.com, noted the reasonable price and read the rave reviews it got, I was extremely encouraged.  Finally we had a solution to Cal getting up way too early in the morning and engaging Dan and me in whatever it is he wants to engage us in at the time.  Can we turn “Cal Can’t Help It” on?  Come see his poopy.  Help him button his long pants.  Put his belt on.  Come downstairs.  Or, my personal favorite, a bunch of sentences from separate experiences the day before strung together as one thought.

Being awakened by this is rough enough for a couple of people who just want to hear the sounds of nothing first thing in the morning; but being woken up by it before any signs of sunlight and life is especially annoying and oftentimes leads to some troubling times when it really is time to be up and getting ready for the day – we become cranky and Cal ornery.  Plus, the kid just needs more sleep than he gets.

So we bought the Owl.  As its name suggests, the OK to Wake Owl will let the kid know when it’s okay to wake up by its face lighting up green at the time set by his parents in a hidden alarm clock under the Owl’s old-man-like pajama top.  When it’s not okay to wake up, its face isn’t green.  As if that’s not obvious enough, the Owl’s face will also light up yellow if the kid presses its belly before it’s okay to wake up, and the Owl will follow that up with some sickeningly sweet pleasantry like “it’s not time to wake up yet, go back to sleep” and then play some (Cal thinks, and I agree) creepy music.

It is not without its flaws.  The okay-to-wake green light will only stay on for ½ hour.  If the kid sleeps past ½ hour after it’s initially okay to wake, I’m not sure how he’d know it’s really okay to wake up (assuming he’s relying solely on the Owl and not sunlight beaming through his window to let him know that).  And I already mentioned the creepy-music thing.

So of course, the OK to Wake Owl is not working on Cal.  I think he enjoys having it only because he likes owls and having an owl just completes his vast collection of stuffed animals.  We’ve had it for a month or two now, and I really can’t think of a time that it kept him in his bed until it was time to get up.  On rare occasions (maybe twice), he’s slept through it; and most often, he’s up looking for someone with whom to share the sight of his “giant poopy” before the Owl’s face is green.

This morning, I witnessed the best indication that the Leatherman family is the one user of this Owl for whom it will not work as intended.  Coming up the stairs after my morning workout and before the Owl’s face was to turn green, I saw Cal in his room, trying to put his clip-on tie on his pajama shirt.  Ella’s door was wide open (we close it at night), and I heard happy coos coming from her room.  I asked Cal, “did you wake up Ella?”  He replied that he had.  “Why?”  I asked, annoyed.  “Because I was coughing,” he replied.  As if that was a legitimate answer to the question I had asked, I left it at that and went to get Ella and bring her to my room.

A few minutes later, Cal excitedly entered my room, proudly holding the green-faced Owl high for me to see.  “Mommy, look!” he exclaimed.  “I see,” I responded, smiling through my disappointment that the OK to Wake Owl would probably never do the job we had bought him and desperately want him to do.