I’m not a fan of mornings. I don’t like to get up early, and I don’t like to get startled when I do awaken.

So all of those are dangerous things, as my wife has taken to waking me up at 6:30 every morning.

Now, she has good reason to wake me up that early. Since I’m responsible for getting my daughter to preschool in a timely manner, it’s imperative that I’m awake with enough time to get both of us ready to head out the door.

But with night meetings and other events to cover on a semi-regular basis, and having to work late many other times, it means I get home late, which means I eat dinner late, which also means I go to bed later.

Three strikes, and I’m out.

While I don’t sleep as soundly now as I did before we had our daughter more than three years ago, I still don’t wake up easily at any hour.

I admit, I’m pretty grumpy after someone wakes me up.

However, because I have had — and continue to have — a penchant for sleeping through alarms, it also meant my daughter wasn’t waking up and getting out the door to preschool in a timely fashion.

That has meant disruption to her preschool routine, and because of that, it means she misses out on the fun things happening in her class. It also means she gets a little grumpy in class, which is not a good thing.

Hence the solution of my wife waking up both of us.

After day three of this, my daughter has already been getting up on her own. On that third day, my daughter — after having awakened me in the middle of the night to help put her back asleep — simply walked over top of me and into the other bedroom to watch morning cartoons.

Meanwhile, I’m still out cold.

That’s when my wife takes her foot and nudges me.

“Time to wake up,” she says.

Cue the groaning, mumbling, non-sensical, middle-aged man soundtrack.

I stumble in the semi-darkness of the living room to get to the torture chamber for the sleep-deprived — a brightly-lit and noisy room.

Talk about a shock to the senses.

But rather than give into the temptation of crawling in that bed and perhaps falling back asleep, I give a hug and kiss to my daughter, make sure she has her morning staples — apple juice and chocolate milk — then I get myself ready, and get her clothes, lunch and bookbag ready for preschool. I wait until a few minutes before the shows are over to have her get dressed. Any earlier than that, and she will start to feel like she’s staying home for the day, or will ask to watch more cartoons.

At that point, it’s been about 40 minutes, and it’s usually another five to 10 minutes to get her to the car. I let my 3-year-old pick out the stuffed animal she wants to take — there’s time for that now!

Then we get her jacket on, using the flip method, and get out the door around 7:20 in the morning.

Today, on the third day of this experiment, dad got her to preschool first! First, I say!

And that’s even after my daughter let me beat her to the door (lately she’s been obsessed with winning running races — “I win, I win!”).

Normally, I’m not energetic enough to make it a competitive race to the door of her classroom.

But it is worth it to get her there early and ready for the day’s adventures.

So, to put it in her language: “I win! I win!”

Well, my wife wins.

Because without her nudge, there would be no winning for anyone.

And in this case, again, in my daughter’s parlance: “Winning is much fun.”