I'm one lucky dude, even if I forget sometimes

It's easy to forget how blessed you are sometimes when
you're changing the 400th dirty diaper of the day.
Taking a moment to reflect on the love of family
changed a bad day for me into a great one.

I'm one lucky guy, but life has a way of making me forget that sometimes. I get so caught up in trying to balance my time that sometimes I forget how amazing my circumstances are.

Most recently, with the arrival of our third child, I have had very little time to myself. Perhaps more importantly, I've hardly even been able to look at my wife, much less have some relaxing one-on-one time with her. Last night I came home from work to find her feeding the baby, as usual, while my two older kids demanded playtime. I'm not scared of playtime, but sometimes I just want to relax.

Since what I want generally means about as much as a Star Trek convention in the grand scheme of things, I went outside and played with my kids. That could be a bit of an exaggeration. I mowed the lawn, and the kids followed me outside excitedly to watch me mow through this summer's until-now virgin grass.

My son was upset I couldn't mow the grass right by the porch. Since I didn't feel like weed eating it either, he took matters into his own hands. He snagged handfuls of the long grass and chased me around while I pushed the mower and threw the grass into my path so it would get "eaten" by the lawn mower. It was hilarious watching him sprint up to the mower, which he's scared of, toss a few blades of plucked grass, and dash off again at top speed to make sure he wasn't eaten himself.

This whole time I'm mowing, I'm thinking how much I'd just like to be hiking with my wife on one of the first nice days of the year. While thus lamenting, my wife came out with our newborn and stood watching me finish off the lawn. My son then stood next to her and my daughter filed into place next to him, curls bouncing as she grinned at me.

It was a "masterpiece moment." My whole family lined up in descending order, back light streaming through their hair to give them golden halos in the afternoon sun. All (except the infant) had genuine smiles as they watched me trudge across the lawn through one of my last strips of uneaten grass. Suddenly, I wasn't doing the yard work because I had to. I was doing it for that beautiful family of mine. For that instant, I couldn't have changed anything to make my life better.

It was a reminder I needed. When we get caught up in the drudgery of raising children, we can look to those silver-lined moments to count our blessings. Ever since this happened, I haven't been able to erase the image from my mind - not that I've wanted to anyway. I hope to always be able to remember that between crying sessions, pouty fits and picky meals, my family is as about as perfect as they come. And no quantity of bad days will ever change that.

.83 cents just doesn't pay the bills

The sum total from my awesome blogging empire to date.
But it's all "Pennies from Heaven."

You wouldn't believe how much .83 cents can feel like. That is my current total for running ads on this blog. I saw another blogger refer to them as "pennies from heaven."

The crazy thing is, that blogger was right. This blog is something I want to write, so any income, no matter how pithy when waging war against a stack of pediatric bills, just seems like a Wall Street bonus to me.

I feel blessed that I can bring in any amount of support for my precious little family. Hopefully I can expand the influence of this blog beyond my circle of friends at some point and maybe even start to write books that entertain people (see this post for a crowd favorite) while giving them nuggets of wisdom in stories like this that force people to say "How sweet!"

The nice thing that is also the curse is that so many people are paying me to write for them. I have outlets clamoring for my time and talents that want to pay me to do it. So unfortunately, my own projects, which I consider more important, sometimes get sidelined while I get paid to work. Dang them for giving me money. If only people would stop giving me work so I could really work on what I want to work on. And in case the word "work" wasn't in that sentence enough, here it is again: work.

And here's a bit of parenting advice just because that's what I do here: give every ounce of attention to a sick child you possibly can. Those kids are in need of love so badly when they are puking their guts out. They are probably confused, scared and, if the amount of regurgitation is any indication, super hungry. My kids have been extremely sick over the past couple weeks, and I have found I have drawn closer to both of them as I've cared for them and rubbed their backs while they do their thing. Both my son and daughter have been more loving since they got sick, but I think it's reciprocal more than anything.

All I know is I'm glad they were sickest on the weekend, because otherwise I couldn't have used the argument against my wife that .83 cents was not enough to take them to the emergency room.

If you like what I do here, please share it with friends and family. Writing is what I excel at, but if no one reads it, it's hard to get myself to write it. I need to know people are enjoying what I do. Even if it does net me mere "pennies from heaven."