The alarm began sounding just after 4:15 in the morning. The fog of sleep-hunger was so thick that it took two cycles of the alarm for me to understand what was happening. It took another little while to really grasp why I couldn’t just roll over and go back to sleep. I shuffled to the shower and began the calculations of just how much I could accomplish before 5:15 came, which was my cut off time to make it to the airport for my flight to Chicago. The minutes whizzed by as I packed, dashed off notes to the girls and Sean, set the oven to bake a meatloaf as they slept. After pressing I-hope-you-remember-this kisses onto each of their foreheads, I raced downstairs,…