“Oh f***,” were my exact words at 6:15 a.m. Monday morning. I honestly didn’t mean to say that. It was involuntary. A lizard-brain reaction to the sound of my Samsung buzzing and singing before sunrise on a cold January morning. “Maybe you can try to not wake up like that?” my wife asked me a bit later in the morning, maybe around 6:55 a.m. or so. Yeah, well, I’d like to. I don’t like waking up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed. And honestly, it’s not even the time that annoys me. It’s the {there’s that word again} cold. Listen: I’m a lucky guy, not trying to claim otherwise. But the alarm tolls not for me, but for the kids. My middle daughter has to be up by this time to get out of the house so we can take her to school. From there, it’s waking up my son so he can get to school. Then my other daughter not far after. By 7:30 a.m., I’ve already been in the car for a half-hour, I haven’t had any coffee, I probably need to use the bathroom. All things I can deal with come spring. But right now? When it’s dark and 20 degrees and Monday? Oh f*** indeed. Now I know life is in the eye of the beholder, and it’s my choice how I wake up. But I’m getting old, man. I’m pretty good at falling asleep at night, but I’m usually up at 3 a.m. for a short walk to the bathroom, and then I go back into my bed and my brain immediately does the math of when the alarm is going to go off and the next three hours are so are somewhere between “fitful sleep” and “sleeplessness” with the absolute worst being “sleeplessness, followed by falling asleep at 5:50 a.m. only for the {expletive} alarm to start going off 20 minutes later.” Worst part? If I didn’t have to wake up — like on weekends — I usually sleep through the night and wake up, naturally, not much past 6:15 a.m. Happily, I may add. But knowing that alarm is going to buzz … like a homicide detective catching a case on his last day, I’m getting too old for this stuff. Isn’t it nice I get to complain about this stuff? I could’ve been born 1,000 years ago and died because I caught a cold. But today? I catch a cold and survive, and get to be miserable because I have to wake up with an alarm. And all because of the kids and society’s desire that they go to school. Bah. But here’s the truth: I wouldn’t change it. Well, maybe the temperature. And the darkness. And the whole waking-up part. But not the reason for it all. Because somewhere between the curse words and the coffee maker, there’s a moment when my kids climb into the car, still fuzzy with sleep, and I remember that these early morning drives won’t last forever. They’re growing up, and fast. My son, for instance, is 15, 6’2”, and lives in the now-finished attic. It’s like I live with some man who’s renting the space. And in a few more years, he’s gone. And my daughters! Yikes. My youngest is 11 going on 21. I can’t even fathom the notion that one day she’s going to be all grown up. So yeah. That alarm … it does kind of toll for me. Time keeps marching forward, one bleating alarm at a time.