Greatness & Two Obvious Revelations

Yesterday was a great day for me. It wasn't great because I ran really fast or because I was able to take my bike out for a much needed ride. It wasn't great because I won the lottery or found a wad of $100 bills. Actually, none of the above happened yesterday, although I do wish that a lottery win happened. No, it was a great day because I was able to spend a lot of time with my oldest daughter and we had what I think was a great time together.

I was lucky enough to be able to work from home yesterday. The reason being that I was the "mystery reader" for my daughters 1st Grade class and it made no sense for me to drive into the office and then have to leave after a few hours to get to the school. So I slept in until around 6:45am, made the girls pancakes for breakfast and then got DD1 on the bus and then to drove DD2 off to Pre-K. Usually it is my wife that takes care of the girls in the morning, in fact I never see the girls in the morning because I am out of the house by 6:00 - 6:15am on most mornings. So to be able to spend this extra time with them was really special.

Yada, yada, yada....I worked all morning. Around 11:30am I went out for a 5.15 mile run. I don't have specifics, but it was a good one, around 7:58/mile pace HR ~162 BPM. I was a bit tired since it was my sixth day straight running, but it was such a gorgeous day that even if I ran slower, I would have still called it a good run. Obvious Revelation: The longer that I can maintain a fast running pace the faster I will be able to run longer distances. Yes, I know, DUH, that is obvious. But, how often are you out running and just doing your normal pace. You will never run faster if you don't push yourself to run faster.

2:15pm - I was at my daughters school and her teacher announced me to the class. My little girl was so excited to see me, it made me feel so awesome, I was a bit speechless. The fact that my just showing up in her class made her so happy, I guess sometimes I just don't realize how much she really loves me. What was also pretty cool was that I know two of her friends from play dates at our house and two other girls who are on the soccer team I coach; they were all pretty excited to see me as well. I proceeded to read three books ("Imogene's Antlers", "Purplicious", and "Josephina Javalina") to her class with my little girl sitting by my side. The thirty minutes that I spent in the classroom with her and her friends was simple great (yes, I am overusing the word "great" throughout this post). I was extremely glad that I was able to do that and would do it again in a heartbeat.

After the reading, I went home and did some more work before DD1 arrived home via the bus. We did her homework together and just hung out until it was time to go to soccer practice. We ended up getting to practice really early, so we had fun dribbling and kicking the ball around together. She was trying to show off and act all cool. It was really pretty funny, sometimes she can be so goofy.

Well, practice came to an end and we hopped into my car and headed home. I asked her if she had fun and she said she did. If she had asked me if I had fun, I surely would have said yes as well, only I would have been answering for the whole day, all of the time that I was lucky to spend with her. It isn't often that a working parent gets to spend more than a few hours a day with their children during the work week. Typically in our house, I only really see my girls from 5:00pm until about 8:30pm (when they fall asleep), and for a good portion of that time my wife and I aren't able to spend 100% of our time with them. We are usually preoccupied, focusing on getting dinner ready, homework done, baths completed, teeth brushed, stories read, etc. The extra time that I spend with DD1 was something that I won't overlook, that I didn't take for granted.

My last Obvious Revelation: There comes an age at which your daughter or son will no longer think that you are the greatest thing since sliced bread, or even just simply cool. Take advantage of all the years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes that they do think you are the best think in the world. Yesterday was one of those days and I definitely think I took advantage of it and I won't forget it.