Time Accounting

To my son Tommy,

During a weekday, you and I are lucky to spend four hours together.  The days where we get the most time are the days I am responsible for seeing you off which are Thursdays and Fridays.

Your alarm clock goes off at 6:50 on these days.  I come and get you from your bed and bring you down stairs.  We throw something on the boob tube and snuggle up on the couch.  This is our version of waking up slowly and is torn from a page in your mom's playbook.  Around 7:05 I get moving to make your cereal and gather your clothes.  We struggle through getting breakfast in you and then we struggle through getting dressed, though you are getting better at both.  After that I grab some breakfast too while you watch Doc McStuffins or Little Einsteins or some other morning show.  (We got through all that pretty quickly this morning and I have time to blog while you are watching your shows.)  We then brush our teeth together, which is often a struggle once again.  After gathering all the necessary Tommy accessories for whatever destination you are headed for the day (bookbag for school, backpack if you are going to Bwama)  we head out around 7:50.  So we have about an hour together on these mornings.  On other mornings where your mother has you, we have no time because I am usually out the door before you wake up to try and make it to daily mass.

In the evening, we are blessed if we have more than three hours together.  I always consider myself lucky if I get home from my work and commute by 6:00 pm.  We do dinner and perhaps some playing and a bath if required and before you know it, it is your bed time.  Mommy and I bring you up and we sing our traditional bedtime songs and then we do our prayers.  The bed time ritual has been quite trying recently.  You try every technique and tactic to extend your time awake.  The one tactic that always works on me is the proclamation that you have to go potty.  I know often you are fibbing but I really don't want to be the guy who made you wet your bed.  So though you cry wolf, I come running and you know this.  You also try the "I'm scared approach which brings on the usual conversations about angels and souls looking over you and how you can't see them but they are there and you have to feel them in your heart and soul.  There are other tactics, but those are the ones I fall for almost every time.

The point is... that is just four hours total on a work day.  It just doesn't seem like much time.  Then if you factor in the time spent struggling with our duties, be it breakfast or night night, the time is shortened even more. Life is short, and when you do some accounting for how much time you have to spend with someone in your life, it seems even shorter.  We have to make the most of our time together.  Hopefully we can minimize the time spent struggling on mundane tasks and maximize the time spent enjoying each others company and basking in the love for one another.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo