Everyone has a bad day. Everyone is allowed to have a bad day. But what isn’t allowed or should not be allowed, is taking out your day on your kids. And I think that there is fine line that people walk, some can recognize that moment that they need a breather and those that do not.

For the first time as a father, I saw that line, but was able to recognize in the moment, that I needed to walk away. What happened? Nothing really. I mean, I had been awake for over 18 hours, I was home with the boys alone all day due and due to the weather was not able to make it into work.  My wife was called out for work and was gone. The boys had played hard all day and we had had a great day. I had cooked and cleaned the house. But for whatever reason, Baby A was up at 1:30 am that morning, and when I went to put him down, he was fussy. He would not go sleep, even after rocking for almost an hour.  I was tired, I was hungry and I really wanted to goto bed.

As I was rocking him and asking him questions to see if there was anything wrong, he looked up and said “I love you daddy”. And in the moment right there, being awake for 18+ hours, being alone all day with the boys, being tired, being hungry and everything else, just made it all worth it.