It’s just after six-thirty, the morning after Sunday Night football, and I’m desperately clinging to sleep, trying to ignore my wife’s early morning routine. A part of my brain wakes up enough to say goodbye to her, and then my head returns to the pillow.

“Daddy,” my youngest says. “Can we play with the water balloons and dart guns?”

I sit up, eyes still not quite capable of opening. “What?”

“We want to shoot the water balloons with the dart guns. Don’t worry. We’ll clean up after.”

“You have dart guns?”

He laughs. “Nerf, Daddy!”

“No,” I grump. “No water balloons before school.”

“Awww…” He leaves.

I lay back down, try to fluff the pillow, to ignore the laughing outside my bedroom door.

No luck. It’s time to get up.