Waking Up Hope

No, this is not a commentary on how to wake up hope in our lives, but a plea for help in waking up my 5-year-old daughter for school every day.

Each morning I start with the tried and true alarm clock, situated next to her sleepy head, move on to flipping on the lights and telling her to wake up because it's time for school. These tactics, which have been effective on my three boys, are completely ineffective on my late night owl daughter.

Here are some more creative approaches I've tried:

1) Putting her to bed super early so she won't be so tired in the morning.
Result=It's 10pm and I think my daughter has been sleeping soundly for the last few hours, only to hear her door open and tiny footsteps make their way out to the family room where a very awake little girl tells me she just organized her kitchen.

2) Thinking of something she will look forward to that day which would make it worth getting out of her soft, warm bed (i.e. you have art today! It's Friday! You get to wear your days-of-the-week socks! I'll make you a special lunch!).
Result=I'm beginning to feel more desperate. My attempts at manipulation seem to be moving into the realm of bribery and I'm afraid she's onto me. Next thing you know she'll be staying in bed longer, holding out until I offer to buy her a pony for getting her tushy out of bed (not gonna happen).

3) Singing her ridiculous songs to make her laugh and wake up happy and/or annoy her until she gets up and asks me to please stop singing.
Result=That annoying song, Alejandro, seems to be on our local radio station every morning about that time and is most effective at making my boys laugh and then beg me to stop singing while Hope just giggles a little and then hides deeper under the covers.

4) Faking a natural disaster. This morning was my first attempt at this. It started out with me shaking her gently, and after no response, I started shaking her mattress violently and telling her it was an earthquake.
Result=Either she realizes that we don't live on a major fault line, or she just doesn't care, but it didn't work either way. Maybe telling her a tornado is coming would be more effective, but I fear scarring her, as she's actually pretty afraid of those.

5) Having Lukas play his trumpet in her room. He's just learning to play, so not only is it loud, but it is irritatingly off-key.
Result=Everyone else in the house is annoyed by such loud noise first thing in the morning, including Joel who has to stay up late studying, while Hope lays in bed with her pillow over her head.

6) Putting Gabby on her bed. Our sweet puppy is the sure-fire way to get Hope to stop crying, so maybe she could help wake her up.
Result=My dog, who seemed to be on to my plan and is terrified of heights cowered in fear as I picked her up and then foiled my attempts to get her onto Hope's bunk bed buy digging her claws into my shoulder and Hope's railing. Later I also realized that she peed on Hope's carpet while cowering in fear. Nice.

So, this is just a smattering of my attempts since the school year began. If you have any creative suggestions, just leave them in the comments below!

P.S. Hope does like kindergarten, though she says it's not as much fun as preschool. :)