When I die, one of the thing I want them to say is...

"he was a good Dad to his kids". Quite a few years ago, I listened to an Anthony Robbins CD and he said "begin with the end in mind" and one exercise was to imagine what you would want people to say about you at your funeral. One of the big things for me was I wanted them to say "He was a great Dad". Well, I had a great weekend and I really felt like a great Dad. I know this may sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I just wanted to share how great a simple little activity made me feel. It started on Sunday with Patrick havin' a not-so-good day. He'd pushed the limits quite a bit and Marie was runnin' short with patience. We were sittin' outside in front of the house watchin' the boys riding their bikes when Patrick basically had a metldown. He cracked a reflector on my father-in-law's trailer, hurt his brother and frustrated his Mom. He felt like he could do no good. It hit me... why don't I get my bike out and take him down to the lake and spend a bit of time with him... just the two of us. So we did that. We went down to the marina and looked at the boats, walked down to the water, and sat and chatted a little. It was GREAT! He really responded to the individual attention and he went on about it to his grandma yesterday. Funny how we sometimes forget that a little individual attention is what's needed... we get caught up in doing things as a group. Of course, Mark got his nose out of joint a little 'cause he wanted to go too. I promised him we would go the next day and that this time was for specifically for patrick. I ended up doing the same thing with Mark yesterday afternoon and guess what... it was GREAT too! I'm tellin' ya, such a simple thing and it payed back in buckets in the joy it gave to the kids and, for that matter, to me.

One other thing to comment on and then I gotta get back to work... it figures, just when we're about the leave for our big canoe trip, I pulled a muscle in my back. I'm hopin' it gets better before we leave otherwise it's gonna put a damper on the trip for me. It even hurts when I take a deep breath. Dammit! Well, I've got a week to get better. I gotta go.

Have a great day everyone!

g.