>Mike, your shining dad qualities are evident here. I get it: you blink your eyes and the little girl in the stroller suddenly is traveling abroad without Dad's protection. The big downside of this life I chose is that I'm away from the kids too often. Though increasingly they come to me- will meet daughter # 2 this weekend. Sorry I've been so busy, would have been good to catch up.

What can I say? With two daughters in other timezones, and the one who stayed with us is basically living separately, dropping out of college after two years (even though she was doing perfectly there, she just didn't like it and I guess she didn't really want to become a painter) and is now a... wait for that rimshot, a programmer. Just like the 2nd one (who does Fox now, btw).

And we still manage to be together a lot. The (mostly partial) family reunions last at least a whole month. I get to have grandchildren around the house - the 2nd one is here for months now, I saw him learn to walk, grow to catch the doorhandle, and I've made hundreds of photos. And for those of us who are in a different city or timezone, there's skype

Life can be good.