Parenthood and Work: Like swinging two bats

Yes, that's my desk at home. No, I don't always have all three computers churning away at the same time. Usually it's just two.

Like any working parent knows, it's really hard to strike a balance. I'm failing miserably, and right now my office job is only two days a week. Well, I am technically on call all the time and painfully connected via Blackberry and laptop. Think of it as having an electronic umbilical cord, but momma only feeds me for 20 hours a week. And I end up working three days if you string all my projects completed at home together.

I should be using the other three days in the week to:

• Grow my photography business through a whirlwind of targeted and brilliant marketing.
• Spend more time with each of the boys individually, have a Cutlet Day and a Riblet Day just to have nothing but fun. Well, Riblet Day would also include diapers.
• Finish the long and growing list of home-improvement projects that I used to put off because "I had a full-time job."
• Clean the house like there's no tomorrow. The thing is, there is a tomorrow and the house will be just as dirty then.
• Learn to play guitar.
• Learn how to be a better cook.
• Get into excellent physical shape so that my soon-to-be 35-year-old carcass will once again feel and look a tad more like I was turning 25.
• Earnest study of the Bible.
• Relax.
• Keep looking for a full-time job in case the part-time's morph into full-time never materializes.
• Write one of the 12 novels rattling around in my head. Yeah, right.

I do some of these things, and shirk others. It's hard to be motivated when I do have some "free" time to be doing these things. When I'm swamped with everything else, it would be better to use my time more wisely. Instead, I procrastinate.

But looking at life overall, I do spend quite a bit of time with both boys, together and individually. We play. We talk. We throw things in the house when the Petite Filet is in another room. We laugh. We romp. We wish it wasn't 200 degrees outside, where we'd do all of it in a more natural setting (brown grass is natural).

The arching point is, don't put off until tomorrow what you should be doing today. Projectwise, I need to get it in gear. But I need to find new ways to enjoy my children, and my wife, because at least two out of three people will eventually grow up, move out and move on. Now is the best time. It won't last forever.