{"id":1660,"date":"2013-07-25T18:23:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T01:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/?p=1660"},"modified":"2013-07-25T18:23:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T01:23:03","slug":"stealing-away-some-time-with-my-daughter-dont-stop-believin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/2013\/07\/25\/stealing-away-some-time-with-my-daughter-dont-stop-believin\/","title":{"rendered":"Stealing Away Some Time with My Daughter (Don&#8217;t Stop Believin&#8217;)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/21193_10151488563418600_1727834279_n.jpg\" alt=\"21193_10151488563418600_1727834279_n\" width=\"520\" height=\"486\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1661\" srcset=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/21193_10151488563418600_1727834279_n.jpg 520w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/21193_10151488563418600_1727834279_n-300x280.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><br \/>\nTo say that my daughter (who turns 11 in a few months) has me wrapped around her finger is an understatement. I&#8217;m guilty as charged. My wife tells me that I am too lenient with her and that is true. But I can&#8217;t help myself. She is our first-born, our only daughter. She&#8217;s daddy&#8217;s little girl. And sometimes she&#8217;s a little too smart for us. A few nights ago she told me that it seems like I never spend time with her. Ouch. That stung.<\/p>\n<p>Lately I have felt like I have over-committed myself. It seems like I have volunteered for too many things, planned too many things, worked too many hours, set overly ambitious and time-consuming goals. In a nutshell, as my kids are growing older, I am feeling like my time with them is getting shorter.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to think that my kids will always want to hang out with their parents but i know (from experience) that the desire to spend time with your parents starts all warm and fuzzy in elementary school and takes a huge dip through junior high and high school until it begins its upswing again in college and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>This evening, I met the kids at the school for &#8220;Meet the Teacher&#8221; night. Because my wife is the PTA president, she was pretty busy running around but I was happy to have the chance to take each kid to see their teacher. My wife had already taken them around but it was a plus that I had enough time to do it as well. When we got home, the boys went to bed and I got some awesome one on one time with my daughter.<\/p>\n<p>We chatted about what she was most looking forward to this school year (which starts monday: year round schools in NC). Then we talked about the Red Sox who are currently on a rain delay. Then we started watching some video clips of Glee songs on YouTube. I talked to her about Cory Monteith and about death and about loneliness and drug and alcohol abuse. Really tough stuff.<\/p>\n<p>We watched their version of Don&#8217;t Stop Believin&#8217; and then talked about how annoying it is that Steve Perry says &#8220;Yust a smalltown girl&#8221; instead of &#8220;Just&#8221; in Journey&#8217;s version.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5WxPyUzWSPA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>We must have watched 20 videos, singing along and talking about how great the harmonies were or how creative the song medleys were. When I looked at the clock I realized we were an hour past her bedtime but I didn&#8217;t care. It was our time together. Just her and me.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to do this again. And again. Don&#8217;t stop believin&#8217; that you can&#8217;t make time for your kids.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. After I put my daughter to bed tonight a friend emailed me a link to this video. Fitting&#8230;and touching. Enjoy.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B32VgWUPRVU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To say that my daughter (who turns 11 in a few months) has me wrapped around her finger is an understatement. I&#8217;m guilty as charged. My wife tells me that I am too lenient with her and that is true. But I can&#8217;t help myself. She is our first-born, our only daughter. She&#8217;s daddy&#8217;s little [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,47],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1662,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions\/1662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}