As a mom who homeschools, it's sometimes hard to get up and start school at 8:00 a.m. Especially when we don't have to. It's not like we have to be in the schoolroom at 8:00 or else we are going to get a late slip.

My Beloved and I would love to have the children up at 7:00 a.m., have their teeth & hair brushed, dressed, have eaten breakfast and ready for school by 8:00 a.m.

Lupe, thinks it's important for the children to have to wake up early. It's a discipline thing for him and I understand completely. I would love for us to wake up early too.

Our problem is we let the children stay up too late. Even when we put them to bed at eight they still don't fall asleep until past ten .

Then in the morning  I don't have the heart to wake them up early. I want them to be well rested before they start their studies so they will be alert and absorb all the information.

We usually start school about nine or so. Once I gather my little brood there is alway some who didn't brush their teeth, have bed head, isn't dressed and some who woke up so late that it's all plus they didn't eat. I would love to say, "Tough Twinkies to you." but I know if they are hungry they might even be grumpy and not in the mood to learn, so then I let them go and eat. (hey, I should have just gave them a piece of bread)

Needless to say, this is NOT what I imagined a homeschooling morning to look like. Same goes for bedtime. My Beloved and I are tired at the end of the day as well as the children. I will admit that not every night ends with a book being read and prayers. Eeeks! Some night I'm like, "Get your buns in bed, I'm not going to say this AGAIN."

My Dear Hubby and I have known we need to change our bedtime routine .

I am going somewhere with all this =) I was so happy when someone on a homeschooling forum recommended Children's Miracle Music.

We have been using this for a month now. It comes with two cd's. One for the morning and one for the evening. Every morning I pop the cd into the cd player at 7:00 a.m. and it walks my children through their morning routine.

A kind voice comes on and tells them it's time to get up and make their bed. They have one song. It continues to explain each task and how many songs they have to complete it.

By 8:00 a.m. my children are ready to start school. Teeth brushed and everything.

At night I do the same thing. I put the cd in at 8:00 p.m. and they are in bed by 9:00 p.m. One day I took the children to the park at 7:00 p.m. and Annette said that we need to be home by eight so they can get ready for bed. How many children do you know who are excited to get ready for bed?LOL.

Also included is a chart that they fill out. For every task that is completed on time they get a point. Once the reach 200 points they get a date with mom or dad. We kind of changed it a bit. On the part that says "Goal" they can write a trip to Hobby Lobby, Half Price, stay up for an extra ten minutes and so forth. Another thing we changed is at night there is 20 minutes of calm music for the children to fall asleep. We let the kids use this time to look at or read a book. Once the music stops it's lights out.

This has really freed Lupe & I. No more frustrated parents. Hee, hee. At first my Sweets was, "You spent how much on this?"

Now he agrees that it's worth every penny