Wake up call

I'm curious: how do you wake up in the morning? Are you at the mercy of a baby's cry? Does a toddler start talking to you three inches from your face? Do you set an alarm for yourself?

It varies quite a bit for me. Sometimes I wake to the sound of my two year old shouting from his crib at my three year old to "get mommy!!!!!!" Usually I wake to my three year old pounding the mattress until I sit up. On rare occasions, when the stars align, the boys will let me sleep in until my husband's alarm for work. (Ahh yes, I never thought I'd consider 6:25 to be sleeping in.)

In an ideal world, I would set my alarm an hour before the kids get up, make myself a cup of a coffee, work out in front of the morning news, and read a bit before cheerfully greeting my boys. In reality, I just stay up too late the night before so the whole waking up early thing never happens (even though I'm actually a morning person!) The other reason is that my kids don't get up at a consistent time every day, even though bedtime is always at the same time. So I don't want to set my alarm at 5:30 for some "me time" just to find out that - surprise! - the boys are up at 5:20 today. And I can't bring myself to set my alarm for 4:30, the only safe time to set it when I'd be sure no one would bother me. I just.... can't.

I've heard of a possible solution... have you ever used an "OK to Wake" alarm?

Like this one:

Or this one:

The gist of it is that the clock will glow yellow all night and when it's okay for them to wake up and get out of their room, the light will change to green. You can program it to whatever time you want, and supposedly it's great for naps, too.Have you ever tried one of these for your kids? I'd love to know if it works before I spend the money on it (better yet I'd love to borrow yours for a week to be extra sure!) In either case, I'd love to hear about your typical wake up call!