Introduction

“Emergency” and “Dad come quick”. In an instant, I went from a deep sleep to running around a dark, unfamiliar hotel room. Usually, when my five-year-old daughter Laurel screams emergency, it means that her 15-year-old sister, Kellisa is having a seizure. However, this emergency was Laurel waking up in the middle of the night with a stomach illness. If the bathroom would have been a few feet closer to her bed it would have been a minor emergency instead of the four alarm kind with considerable cleanup. I desperately wanted more sleep, but I had to shower Laurel and find the laundry room to start a load of wash. I felt bad for Laurel as she struggled to fall back asleep. As I cleaned and washed, I kept telling myself, (Read the entire Introduction to Embrace the Exceptional here).