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any of you may know (or perhaps don’t know) that I am the morning meteorologist at 41 Action News, a job that requires me to wake up early—really early. How does waking up at 1:45 a.m. strike you? You get used to it. The best part of the schedule is that I get to spend a lot of time with my kids after school and during the evening. Speaking of kids, I have two boys, Seth and Aaron, two cats, Whiskers and Lucy, and have been married to my wife, Sherri, for 21 years. We have lived in Olathe for the last 10 years.
The question I’m facing as we get closer to Father’s Day 2012 is what do I really want for Father’s Day? Do I want a universal television remote control or a tie that contains a hidden message? Too cryptic! Or how about the impressive wireless talking barbecue and oven thermometer? All have a certain attraction for one reason or another… I mean who wouldn’t want a thermometer that tells you when to flip a steak? But what I really want for Father’s Day comes down to what I want every day: quality time with my fast-growing kids.
I bet you thought I was going to say a long, uninterrupted nap, considering the time of night my alarm clock buzzes, or a complete day of silence parked on the couch watching some sporting event. Or maybe an endless sunny day on a golf course where my swing is perfect and all my putts drop in for birdies. Those days will come, except for the perfect golf day. That’s only possible on a video game. So my top pick is really as simple as “quality time.” Why that? Because every time I look at my 7- and 11-year-olds, it seems they’ve somehow gotten a fast pass to adulthood. They are growing faster than some video of a dancing dog goes viral on the internet. I am so thankful my 7-year-old still holds my hand when we cross a parking lot, but I know those days are numbered. So, for now, I relish that moment of quality time.
Author Gary Chapman wrote a book called The 5 Love Languages. The book says that everyone has a love language, a way of expressing and interpreting love. Sherri, the kids and I all share the same love language and that is “Quality Time.” Quality time, as Chapman notes, is being there for that person with undivided attention. TV off, work done—in other words, no distractions.
That’s what I really want. Although I try every day to give Seth and Aaron that quality time, they always seem to catch me drifting off to another thought, most times work-related. As many of you can attest, more work seems to come our ways with the same amount of time in which to do it. With all the technological advances in recent years, no one has figured out how to stop the 24-hour clock that ticks every day. When my mind wanders, my younger, Aaron, with voice raised, will say emphatically, “Dad, you’re not listening to me!” He’s right, and it’s a call to action to refocus and stop thinking about how soon I get to open that package of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter or check Facebook to see whether it’s my turn at Words with Friends.
So here is what Father’s Day should look like for our family. My older son, Seth, will try to break me down physically with a laundry list of backyard sports games that will test my twice-surgically-repaired left knee. Hopefully, it survives. That’s when Aaron—who, by the way, is 1,000 times smarter than me already at the age of 7—will invite me to his bedroom for countless consecutive hours of playing Legos. The challenge here will be to just stay awake. Remember, his older brother just took me to my 47-year-old physical limits. Lego building will be easy by comparison, and it will eventually turn out to be Aaron’s building Legos and my just listening to his theories on everything from dinosaurs to celestial black holes to presidential history.
For both boys, I don’t think it’s what we are doing; it’s that we are spending time together. And while it may seem like I’m giving more than I am getting for Father’s Day, that is really not the case. Because for everything we will do on Father’s Day, I will finish the day with a smile on my face because of quality time.