Spelunking

An article recently came out about Mormon mom blogs.  It simultaneously praised the uplifting nature of those blogs and questioned the high standard these mothers are seeking to achieve, even going so far as to suggest that the high standard has resulted in depression among so many of these moms.  My heart goes out to them, having seen first-hand how overworked and under-appreciated my own wife is.  Fortunately or unfortunately for corporate dads there is no such pressure to excel at being a father first, although the tide is changing.  Either way, I do not wish to portray through this blog a perfect balance of father and lawyer.   It is quite the opposite, I'm often too much lawyer, even when I spend more time at home than the average lawyer.  I can reason my way out of or into almost anything, even playing with my kids.  Even when I submit to requests to play games when I'm tired, I still do it half-heartedly at first sometimes.  Take today, for instance.  First, it's Monday.  Second, our toddler was claiming to need to go potty every five minutes, most of the time resulting in false alarms.  This exhausted my wife all day, and now it was exhausting me.  All the while, my poor son wanted to play spelunking with me in the living room.  A common response came tumbling inadvertently out of my mouth--"I can in a minute"--knowing that it would be longer than that.  After probably 30 minutes of simultaneously trying to feed the baby and handling false potty alarms, I finally submitted to my son's request, you guessed it, half-heartedly.  While carrying the baby in my arms and giving our little girl horsey ride, we followed my son through the living room with the lights off as he led us through caves full of monsters.  Luckily, he had his Nerf sword to protect us.  Strangely, my girls' laughter combined with my son's imagination was too much even for my lawyer heart, and I succumbed to having real fun with it.  The reality of being a corporate dad is that sometimes having fun with the kids is like most other projects--we are afraid to start.  We don't have time, we're too tired, and it's overwhelming.  But, also like most other projects, once you start, you don't want to stop.  That must explain whey, when my wife asked us to set the table for dinner, I again replied, "I can in a minute"--or ten.