“How can this be?!” I thought to myself.  I sat back in my chair scanning my memory of the last week or so.  I was drawing a blank.

I decided to carve an hour out of my day to write this blog entry.  As usual, I began trying to find inspiration by thinking about what has happened over the last couple of weeks.  To my utter surprise and shock, I wasn’t coming up with anything. 

I am ashamed to admit that I have been paying very little attention as a father.  The year-end push at work has been very difficult.  I’ve been traveling the last few days.  Thanksgiving turned out to be a big production because we spent it in the mountains with family. It’s been very hectic.

But, that’s no excuse. The plain truth is that I haven’t been focusing on my kids lately and that disturbs me.  I haven’t taken the time to spend time with them. To listen to them. It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you really aren’t paying attention. Didn’t someone say that “life is what happens to you while you’re making plans” or something like that?

Sometimes, as fathers, we worry so much about the finances, work, sports, etc. that we forget to focus on the most important people in our lives. Then, before we know it, they’re off to college and we’re left wondering “What happened?”.

Well, the lack of attention ends now.  I’m committed to being present for my kids. Let’s see?  I’ll call them and see how their school day was.

[Art dials the phone and his daughter answers]

“Hey! It’s me. How was school today?”

“Alright.” She answers with a complete lack of energy.

“Why just alright? Anything went wrong? Did those girls pick on you again?”

“No, dad. It was fine. I’m doing homework with mom. Here she is.”

“Wait! I ...”

[Art greets his wife and tells her he will be home early. He hangs up the phone and returns to his blog entry.]

Well, the phone call didn’t go as expected, but when can you get more than two words out of a kid when you ask how school was?  Oh well, it’s time to pull a half-day at work and go home and help my kids with their homework.

The motto of the story: “Be Present when Parenting”.