Locking Up

Owning your own business is sometimes stressful. Who am I kidding; it's ALWAYS stressful. You have to work unbelievable hours, have meetings, pay bills, make important decisions, hire and fire employees, all the while trying to make every single client happy. And these are only the things you have to do during the work day. And although the hours on my building say 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., it is more like 7 a.m. - Midnight. I actually left one morning last week at 3:15 a.m. and was back in at 8 a.m.

So my daily routine goes a little something like this:
7:30-ish, leave for work
Noonish, meet the wife and kids for lunch
5-ish, leave work and go home
8:30-ish, put the kids in bed and head back to work
Midnight-ish, go home
REPEAT

Please don't misinterpret this, I am not complaining. God blesses our business with unbelievable success and growth. We've worked very hard and earned a great reputation.

So the daily routine got a little out of whack a couple of nights ago. Everything was normal up until the "putting the kids to bed and heading back". I had a very full plate and all of my assistants had been "unavailable" for a big chunk of the week. So after dinner and playtime, around 7:30, I stood up, put on my coat, gave kisses and said "goodbye".

Right then Carter screamed out, "No Daddy! No go bye bye!" Oh, it nearly broke my heart. I told him I had some work to do, but when I got home, I'd check in on him and give him big kisses. He was not satisfied. At all. He turned slowly to look at Angie and ran for the door. He ran back in the living-room and said, Me lock door. You NO GO Daddy! It cold outside! Stay here." I did. For as long as I could. I stayed and played just a while longer. But in the end, I still left earlier than normal.