I’m writing this while on vacation in Province Town with my extended family including my two kids (5 and 2.9), some friends, and a dog named Ringo.  Wednesday was my daughter Natasha’s 5th birthday.  A real milestone for everyone.  My daughter felt about as old as she is ever going to.  And my wife and I have started to feel as if these moments are passing us by like sights out the window of an express train.

I’ll admit now that I didn’t grow up in a June Cleever household.  My mom owned her own business with employees and big ambitions so I never had any expectations that parents should always and only be thinking about their kids.  On the other hand, she picked me up from practice every evening and when I was sick, she would come home for lunch to make me soup.  Now that I am a working adult, I can just imagine her announcing to her business partners in the middle of a busy day - whoops gotta go make soup.

I didn’t appreciate that conflict at the time.  What kid would.  But, I do now.

My company, SaneBox,  is tiny.  There isn’t a lot of overlap. In order for the service to be up 7x24, we always have 2 people on call, which in so small a company means that I am almost always on call. Not bad so long as no disks fill up and no processes go crazy and no SAN routes get lost.  But, there are some difficult nights. So here I am in Province Town with my iphone next to me, just in case.

But here is the thing, my work requirement that I need to be able to check out and deal with some technical fire at any time MUST be balanced by other times where my attention is undivided.  That is the only way it can work.  So I purposely try to be in the moment when we are playing Candyland or the kids want to “help” me fix something around the house.  It doesn’t seem fair to them to be distracted during the time that I have with them. I fail in this as often as I succeed, but I always try.

My wife, who has her own business with employees and big ambitions does that “soup” thing in the middle of the day with the kids. I sometimes do it with her, but for me it is always a struggle.  She makes it seem effortless.

So this post is really a homage to my mom and my wife who always seemed to manage to be in the moment with the kids and their businesses at the same time. I guess I was reminded of this watching my wife rub suntan lotion on my 5 year old while figuring out on the phone how to get fashion samples to some magazine with a deadline. My mom has been gone for a long time, but I can just imagine her seeing that and smiling.

(posting this a couple days late.)