Saturday morning – filled with shrieks of joy. Pancakes sizzle in the frying pan. Amelia carts off to gym with Micky. Luka and I sit and watch the late Premier League soccer game while testing the boundaries of how much a son can do to drive his father crazy without injury or death entering the equation.<\/p>\n
Lunch. Nap time. Swimming.<\/p>\n
A young family tradition of fish sticks after swimming fulfilled with a stroll through the aisles of Whole Foods on the way home. Often a cheese stick, a bunch of grapes, or a chocolate bar fall victim to the the grabbing hands of a toddler.<\/p>\n
Dinner. Bath time. Curious George. Stories. Songs. Bed.<\/p>\n
Then silence – an envelope of exhaustion and thought.<\/p>\n
From the thought has been an overbearing sense of isolation – friends not seen (weeks, months, and years); phone calls not made; a series of physical connections lost.<\/p>\n
A constant conflict between being present as a father, a husband, and a friend. Not knowing how to balance my own triumvirate, inertia decides. And inertia finds me at home with cartoons one moment, and wrapped in a blanket next to Micky falling asleep to a movie that only just started the next.<\/p>\n
I miss my friends. Mea culpa for the moments lost. I adore my family, with no regrets for the memories created.<\/p>\n
The conflict continues without resolution. Only a next chapter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday morning – filled with shrieks of joy. Pancakes sizzle in the frying pan. Amelia carts off to gym with Micky. Luka and I sit and watch the late Premier League soccer game while testing the boundaries of how much a son can do to drive his father crazy without injury or death entering the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[64,4,66,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-bv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":956,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/02\/25\/finding-the-swimming-sweet-spot\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":0},"title":"Finding the swimming sweet spot","date":"February 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We just got back from swimming. We've changed from our Saturday afternoon slot to a Tuesday evening slot, and it's totally changed how the kids engage. I feel like we've finally found their swimming sweet spot. Our Saturday teacher was a woman named Simone who is a fantastic swimming teacher.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/01\/05\/this-week-in-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":1},"title":"This week in review","date":"January 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Every Sunday night, I'll do a weekly update of life because it's too hard to keep up otherwise. This was a week of family bonding. Over last weekend, we took advantage of not having any kid's activities to head south. We hit up Costanoa (we love this place) for elephant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1239,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/07\/20\/community-pool\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":2},"title":"Community pool","date":"July 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Amelia was desperate to go swimming today. Micky wanted to see the curtains. So we looked up some public pool times and headed down to Bayshore. The lady at the front desk of the MLK Jr Rec Center was incredibly nice. Great smile. We got in, and the babies were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":651,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2013\/08\/24\/balancing-the-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":3},"title":"Balancing the moment","date":"August 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The natural order for me for a long time has been to avoid the present, and focus on the future. The promotion I've wanted so badly, and how good it was going to feel. The start up I've wanted so badly, and how much fun it was going to be.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/11\/17\/3-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":4},"title":"3 days til 30","date":"November 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I've run out of ideas, and steam. So today's post will be a photo gallery of the last 10 years. Thanks for keeping up with me :-) (Post-looking up all of the photos... holy shit what a great decade)","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":977,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/03\/04\/this-just-happened\/","url_meta":{"origin":713,"position":5},"title":"This just happened","date":"March 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We were in the locker room getting dressed after swimming tonight. Amelia & Luka noticed that another baby from their class was using the hair dryer. They asked to use it, and then this conversation happened: Amelia: Daddy, you do it first Me: Amelia, I don't have any hair to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}