TMI Tuesday: I Want To Talk To Daddy NOW!

Part of my daily routine is calling my wife while on my way home after work. I have done this for a while and in the past it wasn’t as regular as it has become over the past year. Of course, now my wife and I have little say as to whether my phone is going to ring while I am getting on the highway.

Every day, so I have been told, when my wife picks our son up from work he babbles in the back seat saying “da da” over and over again as if it has become his infant mantra. This usually continues for much of the afternoon (and sometimes into the night) until he finally gets to the point when he reaches for my wife’s phone, says “da da”, and waves. He may only be ten months old but he has no issues getting his message across… I want to talk to dada now!

This is pretty much the same routine regardless of whether he is having a good day or a bad day and sometimes, for some reason, hearing my voice on the phone is one of the few things that will calm him down. However, consider yourself warned, if he is expecting to talk to daddy and you decide to call, he will not readily accept this and will be rather vocal about his displeasure. I am told that it is an interesting site to behold when the voice on the other end of the line is not that of his daddy… basically, imagine being cursed out in baby babble.

Of course, I am of two minds when I think about this routine that we have and the close relationship that I have been able to build with our son. While he knows my voice and he looks forward to seeing me every night, I am usually only able to spend anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes with him per day. And that is if I don’t have anything going on that night. This is why I am happy to have the relationship that we do but, at the same time, I don’t like the fact that I see him for such a small amount of time.

It’s almost as if I can hear Harry Chapin warming up back stage letting me know that I am walking a fine line. He is ready to go and can start singing at any time if I screw up. That is the last thing that I want to happen and why when I am home I give my son as much attention as I am able, play with him, and tell him I love him whenever I am given the chance. It may not be ideal but, so far, it is seems to maintain the strength of our connection.

Still Staying Home But Getting Some Lodge Work Done

One of the things that I have yet to catch up on has been all the emails and other things that I need to get done for the lodge. I have been able to take care of a few things here and there but, overall, there is a mountain of ongoing and monthly projects that haven’t been checked off the list. Even my attendance at the usual weekly fellowship has been put on hold for the remainder of the month (at least there is a darn good reason for it).

Even some of the simple things like keeping current on the email have been on hold as any ‘work time’ that I have had has been dedicated to catching up on other work. Sometimes the lodge activities have to be moved down the list so that other things can get done. No that the backlog from the office has been completed and I am running through only current projects, I was finally able to get back to the lodge work that has been piling up.

Email was the first thing that I had to tackle and when I pulled up my account I was surprised to see that the unread messages still numbered less than a couple of dozen. After deleting the spam, I slowly went through each one by one, reading and answering when appropriate, from oldest to newest, until they were all taken care of. Thankfully, there was nothing too urgent and nothing that made me scramble to get something else done right away.

Next I started going back through my calendar trying to figure out all the events that were coming up and if I was going to be able to attend and/or participate. While the weekly fellowship has been put on the back burner, that doesn’t mean that everything was going to be put aside. With the Secretary Seminar a no go for this weekend (thankfully my new assistant was able to attend) it was time to look at March to see what was going to be manageable.

The stated meeting is the one thing that I don’t want to miss (still some work to do there) and the extra meeting should be fairly short this month so I want to keep that on the calendar as well. Everything else seems to be up in the air. There are many things that I don’t want to miss but I really have to get this new balance right. Now is the time to make sure my priorities are right so it is going to be a very careful process… one that I have a week to figure out. After all, I don’t want to end up like a Harry Chapin song.

Office Meetings And Decisions

Every once in a while we have a client come to our office to meet with the team that works on their account. More often than not, we travel to the client’s office but today we welcomed them to our little space for the first time. Needless to say, my day was dominated by the meeting and other internal sessions before his arrival.

While I have worked with many clients that I honestly dreaded whenever they were in the area and would hope that they would either somehow forget where our office was or not have the time to stop by, today was the complete opposite of that scenario. I thoroughly enjoy working for this client and we always have a great conversation whenever we are either on the phone or happen to meet face to face. That simple fact makes it very easy to work hard for the company.

Of course, when such a relationship is in place there are always conversations, brief as they may be, that have nothing to do with the company or work in general. It is those interesting times when we catch up about family, vacations, and even the random discussion that have previously popped up earlier in the day like your top ten movies that everyone should watch (he definitely got some bonus points for thinking of Hot Fuzz and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and putting them on his list). All in good fun and even better since we all share a similarly dry sense of humor.

So, while I usually detest meetings that dominate my day, this one I didn’t mind at all and the meeting moved along rather quickly. In fact, time was moving so fast that I nearly forgot that I had an appointment early in the evening to check and see if the baby is still normal (surprisingly, more so than its parents still). So, while I hauled bottom to make the appointment on time, the rest of them headed north for a nice long night. Those are the best kinds of meetings when everyone is happy/content and the work day is done and I wish I had the time to go but family comes first and I am not going to start missing my child’s events this early in their life.

While I am sure there will be times now and again when I will miss something I will do my best to avoid those instances. I don’t need Harry Chapin rising from the grave saying “I told you so!”. I guess I have already started to change… even if it’s just a little bit… and preparing for the inevitable. With that said, don’t expect everything to change!

Reflections On Father’s Day

My dad with my grandfather (my mom's dad) from before I was born.

Today I was once again out of the apartment. Usually I don’t like to be out and about two days in a row but there was a darn good reason to get back on the road. This time it was a short trip to my parent’s house about 15 minutes down the road so that I could spend time with the best man I have ever known, my father.  

Father’s Day is commonly seen as a compliment to Mother’s Day and the history of the day expounds upon that progression. A good summary, as is commonly the case, can befound on Wikipedia which outlines the history of Father’s Day in the following way:

Father's Day was inaugurated in the United States in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting.

After the success obtained by Anna Jarvis with the promotion of Mother's Day in the US, some individuals, such as Sonora Dodd, wanted to create similar holidays for other family members, and Father's Day was the choice most likely to succeed. There were other persons in the US who independently thought of "Father's Day", but the credit for the modern holiday is often given to Sonora Dodd of Central Methodist Episcopal Church, who was the driving force behind its establishment.

Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, who was born in Arkansas. Its first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909 at Central Methodist Episcopal Church, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. Several local clergymen accepted the idea, and on 19 June 1910, the first Father's Day, "sermons honoring fathers were presented throughout the city."

However, in the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying in the Art Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane. In the 1930s Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level. She had the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present to fathers. Since 1938 she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the commercial promotion. Americans resisted the holiday during a few decades, perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes. But the trade groups did not give up: they kept promoting it and even incorporated the jokes into their adverts, and they eventually succeeded. By the mid-1980s the Father's Council wrote that "(...) [Father's Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized. US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents". In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

More and more there are moment in my life when I notice that I am beginning to sound or act like my dad (not in the Harry Chapin sort of way) and I couldn’t be happier about that fact. It throws my wife off every once in a while when she notices these things but whenever she points them out I just smile, nod, and think to myself how appreciative I am of that fact. Even the times when my dad and I discuss things we seem to think along the same lines and the discussion progresses quickly… we can summarize the problems of the world rather quickly when we get on a roll.

I wouldn’t trade any of the moments that I have had with my father for anything and I am grateful for all that he has taught me both when instructing me in how to do something, supporting me when things aren’t going well, and the lectures he gave me when I screwed up (I know, your shocked that I’m not a perfect angel). While it may not have been obvious at the time, each of those kinds of moments shaped me into who I am today. Not perfect but much better off for having such a mentor in my life.

While I don’t expect to ever accomplish all that my father has in his life I am trying every day to at least come close. Of course, I doubt that this will ever happen as he still works hard every day and, for the most part, refuses to retire. I just wish that he would stop working one of these days and enjoy all that he has worked so hard for in his life. With that said, I don’t plan to ever stop working either. So, I will end this simply by saying Happy Father’s Day Dad. Thank you for all the help and support that you have given to me over the years without ever asking for anything in return.

Change Is Good Even With Gray Hairs!

Thursday night was a mark in time that I will never forget. I was able to watch my oldest niece graduate from High School (with Honors). I can’t really explain why but I watched from the stands with a great sense of pride as she walked across the stage (preceded and followed by intense periods of boredom). I am very happy for her and for my sister… it was a long journey for both of them and they damn well deserve this time of celebration.

This was also a night that really pointed out the fact that I am getting old. I have no idea where the time has gone and I can still clearly remember sitting with my little five year old niece on the couch one summer afternoon when I was babysitting and watching all three original Star Wars movies in a row on VHS (I think that was the last time I have seen any of them). It’s amazing how we take those simple moments for granted and how things tend to get away from us as we get older.

I’m glad that I was able to experience this before having children of my own. The last thing I want is to have my life resemble the chorus from a Harry Chapin song. By taking the time now, by understanding and embracing the importance of family, and by supporting one another during these times of celebration I hope that I am setting myself up to, eventually, being a good father.

For the time being all I can do is focus on what I have… an amazing wife, a wonderful family, and great nieces and nephews. This will continue to be my focus until things change and my wife and I are in a better position to start our own family. But events like the one on Thursday make me look forward to the future and all the experiences that are yet to come (even the ones that force my hair line to retreat).