We hurried down to baggage claim because we wanted to get home as soon as we could. We had an hour and half drive ahead of us and it was already 9 o’clock. My wife and kids waited off to the side, while I waited right next to the conveyor.

Everyone was tired and just ready to go and it seemed as if it was taking longer than usual for the whole process to simply begin. I waited towards the back of the line. I am not the type to just jump right in the front. Looking to my left I noticed a tall African-American gentleman who if I had to guess, was about 35 years old. We struck up a light-hearted conversation and in so doing I discovered that he had been to Cambridge, the small town where I live. He told me that he had done a wedding there.

And then…

Before I knew it…

i have been looking forward to this all day.

you are going to love this story.

you wait.

To her credit, she has been reminding me. I just keep forgetting to buy it. I mean it's not as if we haven't had several opportunities in the past week. So when my daughter asked me—again—if we had any paper she could use for sketching. She got the same answer. No, we don't. I have suggested, more than once, that she use her imagination and find something else until we can get her some.

This morning she asked again. I'm fairly certain she knew what my answer would be. I hadn't left the house since the last time she asked. But I didn't say that. I'm only allowed a certain number of smart-aleck remarks a day and it was too early in the day to throw one away.

I did remind her though—again—that she should try finding something besides paper on which to sketch. 

Twitter, Facebook, Email & Voxer.

Twitter, Facebook, Email & Voxer.

Twitter, Facebook, Email & Voxer.

I couldn't stop. I don't know if it was the dopamine or the procrastination that kept this cycle going. Either way, it was getting out of hand. I had a terrible headache and was able to convince myself that it was okay to lie in bed and just keep going. It wasn't as if there was anything that I had to do.

My daughter is a perfectionist. She does not like making mistakes. Whenever she colors outside the lines or something doesn't look quite right, she will often start over or sometimes, when she is angry, give up.

Not this one day.

I'll never forget the day she was working on her own personal art project. It involved some new paints she had gotten for her birthday and some tape. She was engaged and having fun. What more could a parent ask for? At one point when I was comfortably positioned on the couch watching a movie, she asked me to come look at what she had created. What kind of dad would I be if I didn’t?

I got up and went into the next room to check out her newest creation. It was pretty cool. I loved her use of color and the addition and subtraction of tape made for sharp lines. My duty was done and I went back to watching the movie. After another twenty minutes or so I lost interest in the movie. I couldn’t focus on it and I wanted to do something else. I wasn’t sure what yet.