It’s interesting the things that are engrained in me since childhood stay with me for so long.

Lately, I’ve been hit hard by the fact that Cliff comes home after work and spends time with Joshua every night. I was surprised to realize that I keep expecting Cliff to announce one day that he won’t be doing that anymore. I suppose because Dad never came home to spend time with us in the evenings, to me that is the normal thing for dads to do. So when Cliff does the opposite, I keep expecting him to “become normal” all of a sudden and stop spending time with Joshua.

This morning, we were all just chilling out in the living room, when all of a sudden I welled up in tears. Seeing Cliff sit with Joshua on the floor just hanging out made me wish my dad did the same with me. I was flooded with emotions and even a little bit of envy that Joshua has a dad who loves him enough to want to be with him.

Speaking of emotions, I find that the raging hormones in my body is likely starting to taper off in the last week or so. I haven’t bursted out in uncontrollable tears for no reason for about two weeks now. But I digress.

I heard somewhere that “quality time with children is quantity time”. One cannot expect to spend a little bit of time with a child and call that quality time. With children, quantity of time is very important. This makes me worry a bit about what happens after I go back to work. Right now I’m thinking of going back 4 days a week, but that leaves me less than 1/2 the week to be with my son. And once I go back to work, I will need time during my days off to run errands, which leaves even less time with him. Maybe I should consider going back just 3 days a week, especially if Cliff gets the next big contract at GM.

I want Joshua to grow up feeling secure in knowing that mom and dad will always be there for him.