"You haven't had dinner yet? It's 8 o'clock; don't the kids have to go to bed soon?" My mother on many occasions, despite the regularity of our late suppers, asks this.


It's not that I wouldn't rather sit down for out evening meal at a "normal" time, but getting out of the newsroom around 5 p.m. is impossible. Reporters are finishing their stories, which many times require at least a quick edit by me before being passed to the copy editors. And, inevitably, we end up having to react to a news story of some kind. When the police scanner starts screeching in the evening, and the fire trucks whiz by our office on Lake Avenue, a chorus of "no's" can be heard from those of us who arrived early and are desperate to throw in the last comma and get out.

For me, this isn't usually until about 7 p.m. or a little later, which means I'm rarely gettting home before 7:30. Not normal in comparison to many work schedules, but something a friend at church said helped me put it into perspective. After hearing me over many months drone on about trying to fix the situation, he told me accept it — embrace the time we have together and stop trying to make our lives like everyone else's.

So now, when the hour hand has already passed 9 p.m. and my daughter is begging for me to read just one chapter of "Junie B. Jones," I try to relax about the fact that it's technically past her bedtime. Same goes for when my son is lying and bed and wants to chat about Pokemon characters. Those moments are worth far more than the few minutes of sleep.