The Father's guilt

Joshua usually wake up at 6:45am and as he slept with us, he will mingle with me in the master room when Felin gets herself ready for work. We will wait for Josiah to wake up before we open the door for him to join in. They will drink their morning milk and I will play with both of them for a while after that. By 7:35am, I'll drive Felin to MRT station and be back around 8am. I'll then wash up and get into my work attire. By 8:30am, I'll then go through the flashcards or books and spend some time playing with them till 9am when my parents arrive. Once the play room is opened, they will start roaming around the house while I have breakfast. After breakfast, they will go down for their daily walk with my parents and I'll be off to work.

The only time I spent with them are the short half an hour before I drive Felin to work and the half an hour before my parents arrive. If I am required to go office early, I'll not have that precious half an hour to go through the flashcards or books with them. By the time I finished work and reached home at 9:30pm or 10pm, the boys will already be in bed. I have no idea what they are doing from the time I left house to the time they sleep.

The guilt is always I failed to spend enough quality time with them especially when I have early meetings or trainings to attend. By evening, I always struggled between having to complete my work, to arrange for appointments or just go home and play with the boys. I alway chose the first 2 but try to do the 3rd at least once a week. However when I'm busy, I can't even come back home early for even 1 weekday night. This makes me somehow unhappy at times. Felin slept early at times with the boys and hence when I'm home, the house can be dead quiet.

Weekends seems to be the only time I can spend time but Saturdays morning and afternoon are always lined up with appointments as some clients can only meet me on weekends. I'll then arrange to go shopping in the evening and dinner with the boys at some nearby shopping centres. On Sunday, it will be church in the morning, lunch somewhere before they go for their afternoon nap. After nap, its feeding time and off we go somewhere again in the evening till after dinner. Its like a full day with them and I'm always happy for Sundays.

Thereafter, the routine of weekdays repeat again. Felin sometimes described me as a weekend husband and I felt its quite true. Well, I think such Father's Guilt happens to a lot of fathers out there who have to manage their work and family. I always feel that I am not managing my time well and are not productive at work.

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Over the weekend, we went back Malaysia to spend time with Felin's family. They also had their haircut at one of the salon. They surprised me that they did not cry or struggled but sat on the plank quietly throughout around 5-6 minutes. Good job, boys... Loving both of you more daily... Both of you are really growing so fast and I know I'll miss this period very soon...