Maybe it is part of being older, or maybe it is part of being a parent, but the value of my time is something I think about more now than I did a few years ago. Actually, I don’t think value is the right word – you can’t put a price tag on time, and you can’t buy more of it. Importance maybe? Though is time itself important or what we do with the time we have that is important? I’d argue the latter. The paradoxality of time. I think that’s probably accurate. Time is both limitless and limited.

It’s been a big week in our house. My oldest daughter is going back to pre-school in a few days, my younger daughter is nailing potty training, and the baby boy is adding oatmeal to his diet. All milestones and achievements worth celebrating, all happening so fast – at least it feels that way. I mean, wasn’t my oldest just in diapers? Wasn’t the baby just born? How can I even have three babies, wasn’t I just in high school? What the hell is going on here?

Also this week, I had a terrible client give me an excellent reminder of the importance of how I should perceive time. Some technical glitch in his iCalendar (though I am not 100% sure it wasn’t user error on his part) didn’t adjust the meeting invitation for time zone differences and he showed up to a conference call three hours early. In the angry phone call to me that followed, he reminded me no less than three times that he bills $650 per hour, and that his time is too valuable to have to rearrange his schedule. I had two immediate thoughts. First, his clients are getting absolutely robbed. Second, his time is in no way more valuable than time, nor mine any more valuable than his. If he wants to tell me the services he provides during his work day are more valuable, sure. But if he wants to tell me that the time he spends on this Earth is more valuable than mine, then I have some suggestion on what he can do to himself with some of that time.

I’ve been reading a lot about Stoic philosophy the last new months, and a central tenet is that we are all going to die. Some uplifting stuff, am I right? But the point is that we don’t control how long we get to live, and that dying isn’t anything to fear or even avoid. Death is a natural occurrence, and as such it can’t be bad, because it is part of the natural (and therefore good) course of things. The most powerful Roman emperor is just as dead as poorest slave, and some day my most arrogant client will be just as dead as me. Time went on before us, and time will continue to go on after us. And in my moment of frustration, I found a small measure of comfort in that.

Whether time feels like it crawling or flying by, I want to challenge myself with making more intentional choices on how I spend my time. If my kid wants five minutes my attention, is that an annoyance or something worth way more than $650? Time spent with my wife, time spend with friends, time spent running, time spent eating some cake, it all must be time spent on purpose. Otherwise it is time that’s gone without being taken full advantage of. So when one of my kids asks for Daddy for the thousandth time when they should have been asleep an hour ago, is that waste of time or is that exactly what my limited amount of time is for?

Time will keep going no matter how much of it I choose to utilize wisely or waste. Now that I am at a point in live where I am thinking about these things, I can’t help but look back at time I’ve wasted. I mean, sure it was fun in the moment playing so much NCAA Football on my PlayStation, but in the grand scheme what did I get out of my twenty consecutive national championships?

Time is a traveler. It will keep on going. It is up to me to make the most of my trip.

Previously, I shared my thoughts on the who the worst father in Disney movies was, and I was asked who I thought the best Disney dad was. (Personally, I think I’m the best Disney Dad. So let’s be clear this is limited to dads from Disney movies, not Dads who take their kids to Disney World.) Like many of my generation, the first one that came to mind was Mufasa. The voice, the death, a very iconic character to be sure. However, the more I thought about it I realized that however iconic he may be, the best dad to come from a Disney movie was not Mufasa, but Cornelius Robinson.

You probably just said, “who?”

If you’ve unfamiliar, Cornelius Robinson is the patriarch in Meet the Robinsons. While it certainly wasn’t the most popular movie, (released in 2007 it was the 29th highest grossing movie of the year. If you’re curious 28th was Evan Almighty) that doesn’t take away from Cornelius’s status a great movie dad. I’m also saying Mufasa was a bad dad. I mean, I feel like telling his only son to stay away from his creepy uncle would have been a good nugget of wisdom for him to pass along. But circle of life, that’s cool.

So what makes Cornelius the best? Well let’s start with the obvious – his name is Cornelius. That is a great dad name. What makes it even better, is that isn’t even his real name. Dude chooses to go by Cornelius. His real name is Lewis. Major upgrade and a tally to put in the best dad column.

Another point in his favor is also pretty simple – he’s alive. I know parents in kids movies are easy targets to kill off early, so there is something to be said for a guy who is still standing when the credits roll. It has been said that 90% of being a dad is just showing up. I think there is some truth to that. I also think that tries to cram way to much other stuff into the remaining 10%. Carring crap to and from the car is at least 8% alone. The simple act of being there goes a long way, so the fact that Cornelius is simply there works in his favor.

Also, Cornelius is not a king. He wasn’t born into royalty. He’s just a dude. He was actually an orphan. He came up through his own ingenuity and hard work, which automatically bumps him up above any of the king dads, even feline ones.

One thing that Cornelius and Mufasa actually have in common is their relatively low amount of screen time. I know that technically Cornelius is in almost every scene in the movie as the younger Lewis, but Cornelius as the dad is only there for a few minutes. If you haven’t seen the movie that may seem confusing, but – spoilers – Lewis travels to the future and finds out that he grows up to be Cornelius. However, Mufasa and Cornelius differ in how their limited screen time is used. Mufasa’s time early in the movie sets him up as a larger than life figure in the eyes of his son, who is then tormeted by the fact that he feels he’ll never live up to what his father may have wanted for him. Cornelius on the other hand is not seen until the movie is almost over, but his impression is felt throughout and serves as an inspiration for people to embrace who they are live up to who they believe they can be. What could be a better lesson for dad to pass along, even in absence?

Which leads me to the biggest factor for his greatness – he literally changed the world. Unlike that useless dope Maurice, Cornelius Robinson is an inventor who makes great things. He revolutionizes everything from construction, transportation, robotics, sandwich making, and the inventor’s holy grail – time travel. Cornelius sets out to make his mark on the world by making it a better place to live, and he succeeds. Isn’t that something all dads, nay, all people aspire to do? And its not like he is some work-obsessed guy who neglects his family. By all accounts his son is smart, adventerous, and thinks the world of his dad. Cornelius has also taken in his parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, so I think he definitly qualifies as a family man. Mufasa couldn’t even keep tabs on one brother. Just saying. Cornelius seems to have mastered work-life balance.

While it certainly isn’t the most popular movie, Meet the Robinsons is definitly worth a watch. It’s got some funny parts, it’s got some heart, and oh yeah, it’s got Tom Selleck. That’s right, Cornelius is voiced by Tom Selleck. Admittedly, his voice is not exactly James Earl Jones, but it is also hard to out-dad Magnum freaking P.I.

Opinions and politics aside, nothing is normal about living through this pandemic. What used to be a typical day at the office has been replaced by an atypical day at home. I have been able to continue working without a layoff or hours reduction, and I know I am lucky because of that. However, this mix of work life and home life has created a bizare state of mind, that seems to have now become the new normal.

I have always liked to keep a clean break between work and home. When I’m working I’m working, and when I’m not I’m really not. When I left the office at the end of my work day, I didn’t concern myself with work again until the next morning. I didn’t go back and check my email, I didn’t check Slack, and I even have the notifications on my phone turned off so I don’t even know if there is anything to check. Work stayed in the office, and home stayed at home. That was the case even before I had kids, and it really became something I wanted to maintain after having them. I work for a digital marketing agency, so I can do my job anywhere with wifi, but I would always go to the office because that was where work belonged. I am fortuante to work for a company who holds a healthy work/life balance as a core value, so having the time to spend with my family was always available. And it definitly still is, but now that my home is my office the lines have become oddly blurry.

A regular work scheudle ended for me on March 13th. For the last five months my office has been my basement and my desk is our old kitchen table. At the start of this it was different. There was almost a sense of adventure about it – there was a challenge to be faced and we were going to hunker down, stay safe, and make the best of it along the way. My wife even made me a care package of snacks and drinks to keep next to my “desk.” Sacrifice and trail mix, those were the keys to success.

My wife was laid off, so she was able to watch the kids upstairs while I worked in the basement. I’d come up for lunch and to help get the kids down for naps, and she would try her best to keep up with the lessons that our daughter’s pre-school sent home. There was something quaint about it, almost Rockwellian. I mean, if Normal Rockwell painted the cover art for an apocolyptic graphic novel. But Rockwellian none the less. Remember those Disney family sing along shows? We were all in this together, and a spoonful of sugar was helping the crushing anxiety go down. Ah, simplier times.

When things opened back up, my wife went back to work, my kids went back to daycare, and I stayed home. I sit at my desk alone in my basement and interact with people through a keyboard and webcam. The work itself is the same as it has been – there are emails to send, tasks to complete, and meetings to have. But doing the work comes with a new challange, and I’m not talking about needing to remember to unmute yourself on Zoom. Now the work must be done from an irregular mental state. I have all the responsibilties of work combined with the daily routine of unemployment. Wake up, get dressed in something comfortable, sit at a computer for long stretches, long for a more normal situation, which you could have someplace to go, wait for my wife to get home from work. The parallells of what I’m doing now and what I was doing in the past when I was between jobs are really uncanny, and there are times it feels exaclty the same as being unemployed. The normal stress of work, combined with the uncertainty of the times, topped off with the ennui of the unemployed lifestyle – what kind of a mindf*ck is that?

And what does that do to the mind’s ability to actually focus on work? Nevermind the obvious distractions that come with working from home – mowing the lawn, doing the laundry, replacing that light bulp that you keep forgetting about until you go to turn it on but you keep putting it off because there are still two other lights in that room and its probably bright enough anyway. Now there are the added distractions of the pandemic, and the looming questions of what to do when schools open back up. If I am staying home, why am I sending my kids to daycare or school? Oh yeah, because I’m still working.

But as I said before, I’m lucky. I know that. Throughout all this, I haven’t lost a paycheck and I haven’t gotten sick. I have never been put in a position to choose between my income and my health. Generations before ours were forced to leave their families to fight in actual wars, and I don’t like it that I put my kids in daycare so I can stay in pajamas and sit at a computer all day. Though it may be the firstest of first world problems, it is a problem. At least it is for somebody who liked a clean line between work and home, and work has now become a houseguest who has overstayed their welcome and I can’t ask them to leave.

A baby’s body is made up of 47% undigested milk. That is a science fact. Probably.

It boggles my mind how a baby can can spit up what seems like more than they ate. Babies spit, I get that, but I also understand basic math. It really ought to be impossible for a baby to spit up 8 ounces when they only drank 4 ounces. However, I have a laundry basket full of shirts that tell me it is quite possible. My baby boy spits up at least something every time he eats, which my other kids never did. They would spit up occasionally if they didn’t get burp out or something like that, but this kid spits up at least some after literally ever feeding.

Even if it is hours after. The other day we woke up after being asleep for several hours and almost immediately spit up. There is no other conclusion to draw other than his bones are hollow and fill up with undigested milk. Some might say that babies are all soft and squishy because their bones are mostly cartilage. Nope. Their bones are mostly milk, laying in wait to be hurled upon an unsuspecting baby-holder who undoubtedly just put on a clean shirt.

You know what? I literally had to stop writing this just now to go get the baby boy out of his crib because he woke up with spit down the side of his face. He ate. He got a big ol’ burp out. He fell asleep. He slept for about a half hour. Then spit. Of course while he was at it he pooped twice for good measure. And just to really drive the point home he spit up all down my arm the second I lifted him off the changing table. I guess he still had some of his secret stash left over that he just felt compelled to make me wear.

I now firmly believe that baby pudge is not fat, but extra milk reserved specifically for higher volume spitting. Like that little extra container of water that came on the Super Soaker 100. Just in case you need to get dad extra wet. Of course the Super Soaker delivered a refreshing splash of water on a hot day. Partially digested milk that is the temperature of the inside of a person is something less than invigorating as it runs down your neck.

The doctors may say my kid has a mild case of acid reflux. But I know the truth. He came with a real built-in version of those fake vomit bags they use to make it looks like people throw up on Saturday Night Live. Yep. I’m on to you little man. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put on my 4th shirt of the day.

There we stood, my daughtors and I looking at the lines of marker on the couch. I knew who did it. They knew who did it. And yet we stood looking at it, waiting for the guilty party to admit to it.

My kids are still generally amazed when Mom or Dad knows exactly who did what and when. Of course any given clue they leave is generally a dead giveaway. A page found ripped out of a book they were just reading…what possibly could have happened??? Yogurt fingerprints in the kitchen…better put on a pot of coffee, could take all night to crack this one. So imagine their shock in Dad’s sleuthing capabilities when the evidince of vandalism wasn’t discovered until hours after the act, with not so much as the mark cap left behind. Though she put back the marker, my older daugher singled herself out as the only suspect the moment she moved from drawing lines and shapes on the couch to a letter. The letter Y. Her name is Lucy. Book her Dad-o.

Though I knew who it was, I wanted to see if she would fess up to it and/or if her little sister would rat her out. I called them both to the scene and asked if they knew who did that. The younger wasted no time in saying she didn’t do it, the culprit was silent. I asked her directly now if she did it. She said no. Using the younger again for leverage, I asked her if Lucy did it. She wasted no time in saying that she did. Such an adorable little snitch. However, still nothing from the guilty party.

Next I showed her my key piece of evidence, Exhibit Y if you will, the letter that only she could have written. Still nothing. I narrowed down the list of suspects right in front of her – I know I didn’t do it, I know Mommy didn’t do it because she was at work, I know Evie didn’t do because she can’t make letters yet, and I know Brooks didn’t do it because he’s only a baby. So that only leaves you Lucy.”

I had her. No way out of this one. Only chance was to confess try for plea deal. Or so I though. Turns out she had somebody else to pin it on.

“Maybe it was the Easter Bunny”, she said.

Every now and then when you are suppposed to be mad at your kids they go and do something incredibly cute or funny and you have to force your way though your discipline without cracking. This was one of those times.

“It wasn’t the Easter Bunny.” I quickly answered.

“Why not?” she pressed.

Uh-oh. Can’t go down that road. If intentional, what a genius move on her part. I mean, what’s my play here? Do I make something else up about the Easter Bunny, like I have some kind of direct line of communication with him? That’s a slipperly slope. Today it’s confirming with him that he didn’t put purple Crayola on my couch, and by next Easter its making sure he knows their preferred egg-shaped candy. And does it go on from the Easter Bunny? If I give any legitimacy to this accusation, what is she going to try to pin on Santa?

The truth was certainly not an option. I quickly pivoted back to pointing out the blame and explaining that I knew she did it and she needs to clean it up and go to her room. She cried, it mostly came off (thank you washable markers), and the law abiding reputation of holiday mascots was kept out of it. For now.

My ultimate hope is that she learns to admit when she’s done something wrong, but if she is going to try to deflect blame I guess I would rather it be on fictional characters than other kids. A he-said-she-said is going to be way easier to figure out if the he in the scenario is Captain Hook. And I guess I’m even a little proud that she wouldn’t even try to pin something on her little sister. Yet.

Though of course, the little sister is watching. A few days later I asked her what happend to her night light. The Easter Bunny was her prime suspect.

Before I had kids I had seen a lot of Disney animated movies. Now that I have kids, I have seen almost all of them. Multiple times. I never watched Beauty and the Beast growing up because it was girl movie. I could probably recite the whole thing by now. One thing I’ve noticed, and it bothers me more and more with each re-watching, is that Belle’s dad is a piece of crap.

In the vast majority of Disney movies, the father character falls into two categories: jerk or dead. There are a few exceptions – Marlin (Nemo’s dad) is alive, and not quite a jerk but not winning father of the year either. Sleeping Beauty’s dad (King Stefan) is alive, but essentially useless to the plot. Andy’s dad is a sperm donor. Then you have Maurice (Belle’s dad), who is an absolute buffoon and probably deserves to be killed off.

Let’s start from the beginning. He’s an alleged inventor, but it seems to me he hasn’t invented anything useful. His reputation around town is “Crazy Old Maurice”, not “Maurice the Inventor”, or even just Maurice. His latest contraption is the automatic wood chopping machine, which takes already cut pieces of wood and chops them into smaller pieces. Way to streamline the process by that last 5%. He’s also invent his own tools, whose only use it seems is to work on his own inventions. Also not super practical. Though now that I think about it, I assume that is how the Allen wrench came to be. Some dude named Allen invented half built furniture and the tool required to build the other half.

Anyway, it seems his best invention is completely glossed over as nothing more than the vehicle for a sight gag – his front door periscope. Crazy Old Maurice has invented the first smart home security system, but a wood chopping machine is what he brings to the fair? What did he do with his goose that laid golden eggs, turn it into sausage?

Now that we’ve established he’s terrible at his job, let’s move on to him being a complete moron. On his way to the fair he starts getting lost in the creepy woods – despite the fact that he clearly has a map. And naturally, his response to getting lost in the creepy woods is to take an even creepier short cut. Makes sense. Even his horse is like, hey mon ami let’s stick to the road here. Congratulations Maurice, you’re dumber than a horse.

So of course he forces his horse down the dark and creepy short cut, and of course he gets more and more lost. Now here is the part that is really infuriating. Now this dolt has the stones to blame the horse. While still unable to read his map, he says “Where have you taken us Phillipe?” Where have you taken us Phillipe?! Yeah, go ahead and blame the horse who was trying to tell you all along that you’re doing the wrong thing. Dick. He absolutely deserves to get eaten by the wolves that come chance to to the Beast’s castle.

Let’s shift gears now to the live action version of the movie, where now Maurice also becomes a selfish jerk. After placing full blame for his failure on his noble steed, Maurice now picks a rose from somebody else’s garden. Which, sure, not a big deal, but c’mon guy have some manners. Now that we know he doesn’t value other people’s things, are we totally shocked when we walks into the castle and helps himself to somebody else’s food? Yep, just strolls right in, takes a seat by the fire, and gets down on some charcuterie. The Beast was right to throw him in the dungeon.

Of course the ultimate selfish move, letting Belle come in and take his place…and people think Gaston is the bad guy? Every bad thing that happens in this movie is set into action by something stupid that Maurice does. Hands down, the worst Disney dad – including the dog in 101 Dalmatians who had way more kids then he’d ever be able to support.

It has been a while since I’ve written anything new. Partly because time has been scarce with a newborn, but partly because I didn’t want to write about what kept popping into my head. I didn’t (and still don’t) want this to be about advice to parents or judgement of how other people parent, and I really don’t want this to be political. However, it is inescapable right now and something I saw on a trip to the store compelled me to say something.

First, let me say I am not starting an argument about wearing a mask. At this point, you either understand and trust the science and the need to put the common good above your perceived freedoms, or you don’t. It is what it is. Due to some emergency plumbing repairs I had to make a few trips to Lowe’s last weekend. I have to say, compared to the demographic of the grocery store the Lowe’s shoppers are much more likely to fall into the anti-mask camp. Mask compliance in the grocery store I usually go to is 99%, if not 100%. Mask use at Lowe’s was maybe 50%. Apparently there is some kind of correlation between the need for home repair equipment and a desire not to be treaded on.

For the most part the people without masks were 25-45 year old men, either they’re alone or with another guy without a mask. Almost all women were masked, and there were almost no children in the store. There were a few though. I don’t know everybody’s child care situation, I’m not in a position to say they should have left their kid at home. I will say, if you can’t leave your kid at home then maybe don’t go to the store – but hey, maybe they had a plumbing emergency too and weren’t just looking at lighting fixtures or paint swatches. At least the kids I saw had their little masks on. Until I saw one that didn’t. A father and his son, who was maybe 8 or 9, were walking around both without masks.

My first thought was this guy is terrible dad. But the more I thought about it, that felt harsh. Maybe this guy was a great dad to his son, I can’t really make that judgement in 10 seconds. What is more accurate to say, is this guy is a terrible teacher.

Politics and understanding (or lack thereof) of science aside, what is this guy teaching his son here? That the rules don’t apply to you? That’s a great message to send.

That it doesn’t matter what happens to other people, you do what you want? Good luck getting that kid to put on a condom.

That you should trust your gut over science and facts? I wonder if that applies to school? If this kid brings home a D in science, will the dad let it slide because who needs that bullshit anyway, amiright? Nerds.

That the government can’t tell him what to do? Oh, you mean like the laws that create an orderly society? Those pesky things?

Might seem like I’m taking this down a slippery slope, but kids learn from their parent’s behavior and if we teach our kids to be like us we are doing them a disservice. We need to teach them to be better than us.

I get that there is a bit of a conundrum there. If I knew how to be better, then wouldn’t I be better myself? If not, then how can I teach my kid something I don’t know? You do some learning yourself, that’s how. Examine yourself. Learn about yourself. Develop your sense of self-awareness and find the shortcomings that you’d rather not pass on. Being a parent means being an adult, and being an adult means contenting to learn and mature.

The world any of us were raised to live in no longer exists. Change is constant and inevitable. We can’t teach our kids the same things we were taught, and sure as hell can’t teach them things our grandparents or older generations were taught. Yes, some lessons are timeless – respect, work ethic, honesty, compassion. But there are things that our kids will need to learn to thrive in the world they’ll help shape – social justice, environmental consciousness, emotional intelligence, the connectedness of a global community.

Never in the history of the world have things gone back to the way they used to be decades or even years ago. (Unless you’re Amish. I guess you could raise your kids to be Amish and you can be as stuck in your ways as you want.) Not only do we owe it to our kids to set them up for success, but we owe it to society to create people who will help in its advancement. There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow out there, please prepare your kids for it. Let’s start by putting on the damn mask.