Fatherly Sacrifices...

Your kids come first...period. My life and my job have done nothing but reinforce that inescapable notion. Your children always come first...and that is why I am no longer a Michigan Basketball Season Ticket Holder...or why I didn't go to a single Tigers game this summer...or why I didn't buy a single Michigan football ticket this Fall...and why Pearl Jam is doing three shows three hours from my house and I'm not going to any of them. It's why I didn't go see Paul McCartney this summer, or why I skipped My Morning Jacket too. It's why we didn't go back to Brooklyn this summer, and it's why we just barely managed a four day getaway from all of life's little wearysomes (good word) last week. I'll take a backseat to my responsibilities as a Dad anyday, but especially right now in these first few years that are oh-so important...that build a foundation and set some serious standards. It's what I believe in, and what I'm doing.

That's not to say that if a ticket to this weekend's Notre Dame game doesn't fall into my lap that I won't crawl on my hands and knees to Ann Arbor. I will. What it is saying is that for the most part I've been there and done that ad nauseam and this was the plan. I'm good with that. Sometimes it's hard, but mostly it feels proper, and right, and those are the kind of people that I always wanted to be.

Now, if the Tigers roar their way into the post-season, the American League Championship, or the World Series, well...Zo doesn't have to go to college. The world needs tomato planters too.