Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

Work Vs. Family...Who's Winning?

This is one of the most challenging daily struggles for me: letting go of work life to focus on real life.

I pride myself on productivity, but I have a really bad tendency to overspend my time dealing with my job and not enough time dealing with my family. The above advice on leaving the office on time is pretty black and white, literally. But if there's one absolute truth: it's that there's nothing absolute.

Absolutely, I try to leave work at 5 p.m. to see my wife and child. But there's always ONE more email or ONE more report. I need, or rather HAVE to, let it go and hit the eject button from my desk chair. 

But in this technologically absorbed day and age, work isn't based on geography or 9-5 time constraints anymore. Your physical office space doesn't have a force field keeping your duties inside. Your cell phone means you're just a call or text away 24/7. Emails can be sent directly to your pocket, wherever you are...including on the toilet (yep, some of my best Re:'s come from the throne)

This availability creates a constant struggle for the subject of my time and attention. But this battle isn't between exterior sources, it's inside me between my own expectations. I have to make the decision to give my family the quality time they deserve. I have to resist the urge to check that message from my phone's inbox (I imagine being addicted to crack is something similar to this obsession of clearing my new messages). 

My career will always add another thing to my "to-do" list, but my daughter will never take her first steps again. My boss will always need more answers, but my daughter won't always laugh at my cow noises. So I intend to get in her face and moo and moo until she gets annoyed and slaps me away. Because even though she's throwing a fit, that means at least I'm spending time with her and not at work.

Do YOU struggle with balancing work and family? Let me know how you deal with it in the comments below! I'm always looking for greater solutions to great problems.

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

BONUS TWEET:

Anlee's Favorite Things...and Not So Favorite Things (10 Months)

Favorite Things:

• Pacifier -  Like a crackhead needs crack, Anlee needs her paci. If it's laying on the ground, she picks it up. If it's sitting on top of a table, she'll climb Mt. Everest to reach it. If it's in another room, she's in a long distance relationship...with a hole in her heart until they are finally reunited.
• Climbing Stairs - She does this literally all day. ALL DAY. She goes up, she goes up, she goes up, but hasn't quite learned the safe way down. So until we get a football helmet to fit her noggin, she'll always be well supervised around inclined planes.
• Playing Peekaboo - It's no longer a one-sided game. Every adult knows that weird lonely feeling: "I just Peekabooed but the baby hasn't been looking for 10 minutes. Am I schizophrenic?" Anlee now loves to hold a blanket over her own eyes and drop it with the biggest smile you've ever seen. 
• Balls - From basketballs to volleyballs, from fluffy to rattling spheres, Anlee loves them all. She learned at a very young age (six months) how to play catch by rolling a basketball. Now she's intentionally dunking a basketball in a mini-hoop. Next up, free throws Dwight Howard!
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - More specifically, the "Hot Dog" song they play at the end of every show. It doesn't matter where she's at or what she's doing, if she hears those familiar tunes...she starts bouncing. Hopefully she starts learning some rhythm and we can make millions being the parents of the youngest dancer in the next, inevitable Step Up sequel.

Not So Favorite Things:

• Sitting Still - No way, no how, rest she will not allow. Anlee craves motion, constantly. Even when she's asleep, she kicks her legs like she's riding a uncooperative horse. Which leads us to the next Not So Favorite Thing...
   
• Going to Sleep - Even when she's so tired she can't keep her eyes open, she still refuses to lay still and hibernate. Naps can turn into fights and bedtime is a curse word. I hope this is just a baby phase. If the refuse to snooze carries into grade school, what's left of my sanity may turn into cucumber best friends.
• When Mom and Dad Say "No" - Anlee is used to getting her way, ALL THE TIME. If that doesn't happen, hell on earth breaks out. Even something as simple as closing the baby gate can set off waterworks and banshee screams.   

A Proud Dad: Anlee's First Basketball Highlight Reel

One of my major passions in life is basketball. I love to play, watch, listen, coach (if needed)...I love everything there is about the sport. So of course, my daughter is going to get a very early introduction to her father's game.

My wife and I got this used toy basketball hoop for Anlee when she was just a few months old. She began by just drooling on it as we made the lights flash and music play. Then she started using it as a base to push up against when she started sitting. Then she pulled herself up with the rim and started to lean on it to stand. Actually the first time she ever stood by herself, she pushed away from the backboard to balance herself. A lot of her physical progression has been with this hoop. And she has always loved rolling basketballs back and forth with mom and dad. This fills me with joy that no Texas Longhorns buzzer beater can match.

But she has yet to actually use the hoop to play basketball...as in put the ball into the hoop. She's watched me and my wife do it a million times, but she's just a spectator. She would sometimes tip the ball into the hoop if we held the ball over it, but she's never "shot" it herself. But that great feat was accomplished last night. And I captured it on camera!

So once she got the hang of it and her field goal percentage went up (all she does is dunk!), I made a highlight reel...her first of many to come. Enjoy!

  

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

BONUS TWEET:

The Disease of Being Busy...Rethink Your Priorities

The most profound thing I've read in a long time, "The Disease of Being Busy" is a post by Omid Safi. It challenges us to lay down our burdens of busyness to really reflect on what matters in life...the people.

I struggle with this every single day, trying to balance work at work, work at home, family, friends, social media, extra curricular activities like fantasy football. But this massive to-do list is never done. Why? Because I don't allow myself to feel at ease...and that needs to change.

Excerpt from "The Disease of Being Busy" by Omid Safi (read the entire post here)

This disease of being “busy” (and let’s call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.

Since the 1950s, we have had so many new technological innovations that we thought (or were promised) would make our lives easier, faster, simpler. Yet, we have no more “free” or leisurely time today than we did decades ago.

For some of us, the “privileged” ones, the lines between work and home have become blurred. We are on our devices. All. The. Freaking. Time.

Smart phones and laptops mean that there is no division between the office and home. When the kids are in bed, we are back online.

One of my own daily struggles is the avalanche of email. I often refer to it as my jihad against email. I am constantly buried under hundreds and hundreds of emails, and I have absolutely no idea how to make it stop. I’ve tried different techniques: only responding in the evenings, not responding over weekends, asking people to schedule more face-to-face time. They keep on coming, in volumes that are unfathomable: personal emails, business emails, hybrid emails. And people expect a response — right now. I, too, it turns out… am so busy.

The reality looks very different for others. For many, working two jobs in low-paying sectors is the only way to keep the family afloat. Twenty percent of our children are living in poverty, and too many of our parents are working minimum wage jobs just to put a roof over their head and something resembling food on the table. We are so busy.

The old models, including that of a nuclear family with one parent working outside the home (if it ever existed), have passed away for most of us. We now have a majority of families being single families, or where both parents are working outside the home. It is not working.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is yourhaal?

What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, “How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?” When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.

NEW DAD: EXPECTATIONS VS. REALITY

This is great stuff from Mandatory.com. 

I'm glad Anlee isn't a cranky, poop shooting baby. For the most part as an infant, she was pretty laid back and agreed to only defecate when her diaper was on. I feel bad for the dads who endured fountains of bodily fluids/solids/plasma.

What was YOUR toughest battle as a new parent? No sleep? Baby messes? Adjusting to the new responsibilities?

Let's discuss in the comments section!

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

BONUS TWEET:

BST: Baby Standard Time

"Extra hour of sleep, my ass." - Parents

This past weekend marked the end to Daylight Saving Time and we all fall back an hour. For most people that means some extra rest...and then a day full of disorientation. You wake up to a confusing world where clocks suddenly become very suspicious. Don't trust any time piece you look at, except your cell phone, which you look at every 15 seconds to make sure you haven't stepped into a time warp.

But babies don't care much for clocks, the New Zealand dude who came up with the idea of Daylight Saving Time, or your precious shut eye. Trying to convince a baby to sleep in will do you as much good as giving them a potato and telling them to uninstall Windows 8.

Anlee woke up her normal 6 a.m...except it's now 5 a.m. She ate breakfast at 7 a.m. (6 a.m.). She took a nap at 8:30 a.m. (7:30 a.m.) She pooped at 9:30 a.m. (you smell where I'm going). She was very well unaffected by the time change. But her parents, unfortunately, have to follow the rules of Standard Time.

That clock really ticks me off.