So, I have this great new Thing I Love, that didn’t make Volume II, because I bought it 2 days after I posted that blog. I didn’t want to hold out until Volume II for this Thing, so lucky you–An Addendum!! This Thing has a story that goes along with it too, so it works out well that it is getting its own post.
Let me set the stage: our bedroom is relatively small. We only have one nightstand, which means one alarm clock. That alarm clock used to be on my side of the bed until Little Man was born. I switched sides with the hubbs so I had a straight shot to his bedroom in the middle of the night (believe me, those few extra steps are so worth it). This means I can no longer see the clock. Our bed is high, so the clock is actually below the hubbs on the other side. For me to see it, I have to sit all the way up and lean over in bed.
Without going into the minutiae of our nighttime routine, at this point I know that, for the most part, if Carson wakes up within an hour after his last feeding, I can usually give him 5-10 minutes and he will fall back to sleep. The problem with this? First, I don’t know what time it is to tell if I need to get up with him or not. Second, in my fuzzy half-sleep, I have no idea if it has been 5 minutes or 5 hours. And if I am going to sit all the way up in bed and lean over, I might as well just get out of bed anyways.
The solution? Ask the hubbs what time it is. Obviously. It seems so simple. Here is a sampling of some of the answers I have gotten when I have, in the middle of the night, asked him, “What time is it?”:
“10:47.” This would have been a good answer, if I hadn’t already woken up at midnight, making 10:47 a virtual impossibility, especially considering it was still dark out.
“A little bit of snow.” I couldn’t make this up. When I say again, very deliberate in an attempt to wake up my obviously still sleeping husband, “What. Time. Is. It?”, I get in response, “A. Little. Bit. Of. Snow.” What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Besides getting pissed that the hubbs is obviously not even hearing his own son and can’t wake up enough to tell ME, the one getting up, what time it is, I can sit all the way up and lean over and check for myself.
Enter the Emerson Dual Alarm Clock with Smart Set. I haven’t had a new alarm clock since high school, and let me tell you–things have really improved in the last 15 years! First of all–you just plug this clock in and it sets itself: date, time, day of the week. You’d think with today’s technology, I wouldn’t be so amazed by this, but I am. It has two alarms, which you can set for 7 days, weekdays, or weekends only. It is a clock radio, which is great, because I have never been one to respond to incessant bleating in my ear. For those that do prefer that, this clock is nice because it starts out soft and slowly increases the volume, so as to not cause you some kind of heart palpitation in the middle of your deep sleep. And lastly, the most important feature?? It projects the time on your ceiling! Aaaahhhhhhhhh!!! In the words of the Guinness guys, “BRILLIANT!!”
All I had to do last night was open my eyes, and there, across my ceiling, was the glorious time!! You can choose what color you would like your time projected in, which is good because the red kind of makes me think of evil and that may affect the few short dreams I have. Instead, I have chosen to go with the calming blue, but if you would prefer, you could also choose green. There is a focusing option, so you don’t have to look at your clock all fuzzy on your ceiling when you are already fuzzy yourself. The only down-side to this clock is that the projection isn’t only the digits, there is also a box of light around the digits. It does illuminate the room some, and the farther away from the clock you project the time (the projector has a little moving arm so you can adjust where you project your time), the bigger and brighter the box. I have decided the illumination is totally worth not waking up at “A. Little. Bit. Of. Snow.”
I'm Thinking Too Hard! 