Father's Day

Random Musings: I have elected to avoid the self-flagellation of reviewing my posts for goals unmet. My instinct says it is a good idea and I have ample evidence in my life that my instincts suck. So in order to keep the George Constanza approach alive and well, we will move on to other things.

Rather I'll talk briefly about Father's Day. If the theme of my life is uncertainty (and it is along with uncertainty's friend anxiety), then my relief from that emotion is in my role as a father. It's not that I'm certain that everything I do as a parent is the right thing. In fact I'm never sure about that. Rather my relief is from the fact that I was always certain that I would be somebody's Dad and the role feels like home to me.

It's hard to describe really. I can name several people at the drop of a hat who are more effective parents than me in many ways. Yet, I enjoy clarity in that I don't have doubts about being a parent in general. I have many friends and relatives who say they are often kind of blown away by where they are, in a "am I really someone's dad/mom? How did that happen?" way. While parenting has been a struggle, I can honestly say I've never felt out of place being one. I mean I can't choose a career, a place to live, a preferred form of exercise without questioning it on a daily basis, but I never wonder about whether it was the right thing to be with my kids.

So, this is probably the most meaningful day of the year to me. I spent it with my kids and we didn't really do a darn thing. It was pretty great.

I'm not always the most attentive or involved Dad. I wish I was more like my brother and others I know who play board games and engage their kids better on a moment to moment basis. In my defense though, I once saw a sitcom that said in the end 80% of being a parent is simply showing up and I do that pretty well:) I'm always working on quantity time even if I'm a bit weak on the quality time front. It's amazing the wisdom of Modern Family if you really listen for it...

So thanks Hannah and Cameron for giving my life one clear piece of meaning. And thank you to my wife for letting me see you naked and creating said children:)

Exercise update: I had my best run in months today. My workout calendar said run for 30 minutes and after a two minute walking warm-up that is exactly what I did. No Galloway method today, just a straight 30 minute training run. When I went to map it on the calendar I was over 3 miles meaning I was running 10 minute miles, which is what I like to train at when I'm slow and I hadn't been there yet. I cooled down for 20 minutes by walking my pooch.

Combined with yesterday's biking, I think I may be getting somewhere on the fitness front, the weight loss front is a more complicated issue.

I ran today rather than swim because it was just too tough to get kids to the Y in time and we took the day of lethargy in honor of my favorite holiday. Tomorrow says 30 minutes in the pool and barring death or vomit, that will happen.

Nutrition update: I always eat better when I stick around the house and today was no exception. It is currently about 8:00 p.m. and I have a couple hundred calories to spare for a bedtime snack if I wish. I need to find a better snack than a PBJ sandwich. I had one at 4:00 in the afternoon and it put a bit of a calorie squeeze on until my run and cool down with my dog.

I am also pleased to report that my dinner included a healthy sized serving of broccoli. This was a part of what has probably been my best veggie week so far. On a healthy eater's radar I'd still be very low, but for me it's progress. I've had broccoli twice this week and I had salad at least one day along with a lot of veggies in my Chinese food last Thursday.

I've gotten back to honest tracking of my food the last couple days and that seems to really matter. My brain will take any excuse to not log food. I think that is a sign that I will need to do logs much longer than I had planned. I keep wanting to "prove I can do it myself", but there is no evidence of that being true.

Anyway, happy padre's day to all. I hope it was as good to you as mine was to me.