3-Year-Old Alarm Clock

Everyone but Abby was sleeping this morning when she walked into our room and began talking about something. I don't know what it was, though, since I immediately noticed that it was 7:45, and clearly no alarm had gone off like it should have at 6:45. So: pee-clothes-frozen lunch-granola bar-coat-kisses, and I was gone. No showering or shaving, no real combing of the hair, no brushing of the teeth. Also, we had our first real snow of the year, so our street was an ice rink, and the drive to Big Rapids wasn't great, but it wasn't a disaster, either. Regardless, I was almost 20 minutes late for my first class.

On the way up, I tried to call the math department office so they could let my students know before they could employ some sort of made-up "10-minute rule" and left. However, I only got about 2 seconds of call time before my cell phone died. After thinking through the quickest way to redial, I managed to power it up one more time, and tried to say "It'sMikeDekkerI'mgoingtobelatehelp!" before it died again. It was like some movie where I was in danger and had a small window of time to alert the authorities. Apparently, they heard enough in the office or managed to figure it out, because someone spoke with my students. They didn't mind, and thought my Christmas All-Stars were cool.

In the end, the sky turned blue, all was well, and we had a nice evening with friends up in Cedar Springs with pizza, beer, ice cream, foosball, cards, and general chaos: 8 adults (ages 32,32,32,31,31,31,31,31), 10 kids (ages 6,6,5,5,3,3,2,2,1,8mo), and one yellow lab.