All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom and a poom-poom...

I have to share, yet another, piece of marriage-altering technology. Pictured left is the Sonic Boom alarm clock. To describe its affect on my marriage, let us travel back in time.

I have known since we met in college that Hubby loves his sleep and is a deep sleeper. He rarely rose before noon any day of the week. He has never been one to jump out of bed, his feet hitting the floor as he turns off the alarm clock. That would be me. He also does not enjoy conversation immediately upon waking. Hilarious now that we have two small beings in our bed, up with the sun, asking, "Why do birds chirp, Daddy?" He attributes this early rising to a genetic defect inherited from their mother. Fortunately, for the early years of our marriage, I was the one getting up first since my job as an elementary school teacher required getting in at 7:00. Before leaving I would gently shake Hubby telling him it was time to rise and spend a few minutes rubbing his back and easing him into his day (I know!). When I left he was usually still in bed and would eventually make his way to the shower at the last possible minute in order to make it to work on time.

Fast forward to 2004 and I have just had daughter #2. Hubby has started a new job which requires him to leave for the city at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a few days a week. I am ridiculously sleep deprived and have not yet gotten into the groove of having more than one child so, needless to say, the back-rubbing wake-up portion of our marriage was over for the foreseeable future. We have one baby monitor going for #2 and we are sleeping with our bedroom door open so we can hear #1 if she wakes. So Hubby's alarm goes off and, finally, after a full minute of blaring ringing, he hits snooze. Nine minutes later, the same thing. At this point I am awake, as is our oldest who is asking for her morning cup of milk. It is 5:00. After bursting into tears out of sheer exhaustion I tell Hubby he can either sleep in the basement or get a new job.

This scenario repeats itself a few more times followed by knock-down, drag-out fights until I decide it is better to be woken up myself by setting my own alarm and then waking Hubby (read punching him in the arm and saying "Get up and if you wake the baby I'll kill you" since he has the grace of an elephant as he tromps around the house getting ready. Why must he put on his shoes and then go brush his teeth? I digress...). This plan worked well until our son was born and, once again, I was the walking dead existing on a few hours of shut-eye. We needed to find a way for Hubby to wake himself up without waking the whole house (yes, we started closing our door, but with the volume and length of alarm required for Rip VanWinkle to wake no thickness of soundproof material would prevent our kids form hearing it).

And then we found it. The Sonic Boom. Now the name does suggest it's loud - and it is. If you use the sound it's like being next to a nuclear power plant during a melt down. However, the genius part is the second mode. You place the round pad under your pillow and when it goes off it vibrates violently under your head waking you up silently! Glory, glory hallelujah! This device has ended all of our morning problems. It not only wakes Hubby out of his stupor, but I can fall back to sleep quickly after it goes off and the kids are not disturbed at all. We love it so much we have affectionately dubbed it The Rumpshaker. I laugh when I think of the cleaning lady changing the sheets and thinking it's a sex toy. I actually tried to explain it to her once in broken English, but I think I did more harm than good and now she thinks we're into S&M.

So let me highly recommend this product for those of you having alarm issues or living in a small house as we do. It will single-handedly end your mornings of exhaustion-fueled screaming matches. Well, at least until he forgets to put it in silent mode.